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BEECHER'S WORKS. VOL. III. 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY; 

AS DEVELOPED IN 



THREE SERMONS, 



HIS TRIALS BEFORE THE PRESBYTERY AND 
SYNOD OF CINCINNATI, JUNE, 1835. 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW^, 



LYMAN BEECHER, D. D. 



BOSTON: 
JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY. 
CLEVELAND, OHIO: 
JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 
1853. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 
LYMAN BEECHER, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED BY 

HOB ART & BOBBINS, 
NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE F0UNDERY, 
BOSTON 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

INTRODUCTION, 5 

SERMON L — ON DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY, ... 13 

SERMON IL — ON THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN, . . 53 

SERMON HI. —ON THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN, . . 72 

TRIAL FOR HERESY BEFORE PRESBYTERY, 83 

Dr. Wilson's Charges, 84 

Testimony, 93 

Dr. Wilson's Plea in Support of his Charges, 112 

Dr. Beecher's Defence. 

Preliminary Remarks, 190 

Right of Private Interpretation, 196 

Rules of Interpretation, 206 

- Natural Ability, v 208 

"Moral Inability, 287 

- Original Sin, 318 

- Regeneration, . . . . i 352 

Charge of Perfectionism, 378 

Charge of Teaching Regeneration by Truth alone, 381 

Charge of Slandering the Church, 384 

Charge of Hypocrisy, 387 

Want of Entire Agreement on Minor Topics no Bar to Fel- 
lowship, 390 



IV CONTENTS. 

Page 

Effect of Decision on the Church, 396 

True Design of Creeds, 402 

Decision op Presbytery, . . . . 411 

Appeal to Synod, . . 413 

Decision of Synod, 413 

Appeal to General Assembly, 413 

Appeal Withdrawn by Dr. Wilson, 413 

REMARKS ON AN ARTICLE IN THE PRINCETON REVIEW, . 414 



INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



During the pendency of my trials, and the appeal to the Assem- 
bly, innumerable false reports concerning me were circulated, and 
an impervious mist of prejudice environed me. But, with one excep- 
tion, I made no reply. Once, however, such a flood of misrepre- 
sentation rolled in upon the Seminary, as began to alarm some of my 
students and other friends. I, therefore, published a concise his- 
torical statement of facts, which answered the purpose. 

In addition to such reports, an injurious review of my " Views 
of Theology " was published in the Princeton Repertory. But at 
that time my pastoral labors and Seminary cares, and solicitation 
of funds, and preaching always four times in the week, and lecturing 
an hour every week-day, nine months successively, did, with the 
vexations of my ecclesiastical trials, so reduce my health, that I 
could not immediately answer it ; and as it was limited to the circu- 
lation of a periodical, and as my one reply had provoked additional 
misrepresentations, and thus afforded calls for twenty more, I 
concluded, in order to end an aggressive controversy, and keep the 
peace, to remain silent, at least for a time. 

But understanding, at length, that the article of the Princeton 
reviewer was embodied in one of two octavo volumes, as a public 
and permanent document, I have deemed it a duty to myself, and 
the Church of God, in preparing my works for the press, of my own 
knowledge, and with such aid as I have needed, to prepare this 
permanent historical statement, as well as the reply to the Prince- 
ton reviewer, which is subjoined to my Views of Theology. It is 

VOL. III. 1* 



6 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



my hope to renew no unkind feeling or discussion, and only to 
stand correctly in the view of the present and coming generations. 

Ever since the days of Edwards, there has been a conflict 
between the divines of New England and those of a portion of the 
Presbyterian Church. The New England divinity was born in a 
revival of religion, and was specially designed to promote revivals. 
It was held and propagated by the friends and promoters of great 
revivals. Against this theology, under the name of Hopkinsian- 
ism, a fierce assault was made. This was followed by a new cam- 
paign, in which the watchword was Taylorism. 

Peculiar interest was felt in this conflict by the opposing Pres- 
byterian party, because, by reason of the plan of union, early estab- 
lished at the proposal of the Presbyterian Church, New England 
divines were continually entering that Church, carrying with them 
their divinity, and their views of the expediency of prosecuting 
benevolent enterprises by means of voluntary associations, in which 
both Presbyterians and Congregationalists could cooperate. The 
result, however, was, at length, that New England theology and 
New England measures soon began to exert an increasing influence 
in the Presbyterian Church. 

To counteract this influence, the opposing portion of the Presby- 
terian Church organized benevolent societies designed to promote 
their views, placed under the immediate control of the Church. 
Still, however, they did not arrest the course of events. The 
prevalence of New England views and measures still continued to 
increase, until finally, in five years out of seven, without any special 
effort beforehand, those who embraced them elected the Moder- 
ator, and controlled the measures of the General Assembly. To 
prevent such a state of things, their opponents had already, by an 
early foresight, added to their own a very respectable denomination, 
with its illustrious leader, to maintain the balance of power. 

But, as still the danger pressed, but two courses seemed to remain 
to arrest the alarming progress of New England influence ; either 
to intimidate the leaders and their flock by trials for heresy, and 



INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



7 



exclusion from the Church, or to revolutionize the Church itself. 
They tried them both. In the attempt to convict me of funda- 
mental error, contrary to the teachings of the Confession of Faith 
and the word of God, they could not approach a majority. They 
resorted, therefore, to the second course ; and, having accidentally a 
majority, they expelled from the Church, without trial, and by 
lawless violence, enough of the New England element to restore to 
themselves the ascendency. Those thus expelled, and their friends, 
gathered themselves together on the basis of the constitution which 
had been so grossly violated, and organized the true constitutional 
General Assembly ; and thus, as once before, was the Presbyterian 
Church rent in twain. 

From this brief narration, it is plain that the trials to which I 
have referred were a great development of results in the theological 
history of this country. The accumulating influence of the con- 
flicts of many years then came to a crisis. For this reason, it has 
appeared to me important to preserve a full account of those trials, 
as, perhaps, more fully than anything else representing the spirit 
and body of the times, and furnishing indispensable materials for 
the future history of our Church and nation. 

Accordingly, I have taken pains to preserve in this volume, not 
only an account of the trial to which I was subjected, but the 
printed documents essential to a full understanding of it. 

Of these, some were written before the outbreak of the general 
assault on the views of Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, and others sub- 
sequently. It is important, therefore, to say a few words respecting 
my relations to that controversy. The design of those who assailed 
Dr. Taylor was, if possible, to exclude him and his sentiments from 
the fellowship of the New England Churches. His most earnest 
opposer had been formerly known as a zealous and decided 
New England divinity man. But, alarmed at the spread of the 
opinions of Dr. Taylor, he undertook the work of assailing them, 
not only in New England, but in the Presbyterian Church. 
He, and his friends also, were desirous that I should engage 



8 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



with them in the work of arresting Dr. Taylor's opinions. This, 
for many reasons, I refused to do. In the first place, I felt that 
I had a right to stand on independent ground, and not be swept 
in as a partisan on either side. Again, in many things of great 
moment I agreed with Dr. Taylor, although I did not adopt all 
parts of his system. Finally, I did not regard those parts of his 
system which were most violently assailed, even if erroneous, as of 
any such fundamental consequence as to exclude him from the 
fellowship of the New England and Presbyterian Churches. 

For taking this ground, I was violently assailed in New England 
before my removal to the West, and also after my arrival there. 
Especially on my trial, great efforts were made to employ all that 
had, for these reasons, been written against me in New England, 
and all the odium and alarm which had been created against Dr. 
Taylor in the Presbyterian Church. 

Before the coming up of this controversy, although well known 
for years as an Edwardean New England divine, I had enjoyed the 
affection and confidence of the leading" men among the Princeton 
divines, and had been earnestly requested by them, as will soon 
appear, to enter the Presbyterian Church, they pledging to me their 
fellowship and cooperation. It cannot, therefore, be obscure what 
were the probable reasons of the effort to crush me, which was made 
just before and after I entered the Presbyterian Church. Then 
the Princeton and metropolitan power was relatively waning in the 
Church, and to prevent a result so unwelcome, three prominent 
leaders of the opposite party were successively put on trial, of whom 
I was counted worthy to be one. 

The charges against me were chiefly based upon certain sermons 
of mine, of which those on the Native Character of Man hold the 
first place. These were published in 1827, and caused, at that time, 
no excitement or alarm anywhere. Much use was also made of my 
sermon on the Dependence and Free Agency of Man, published 
just before I left New England for the West, which also was 
received with general approbation. These are reprinted in the 



INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 9 



comniencment of the present volume. Reference was also made to 
the sermon on the Faith Once Delivered to the Saints, which has 
been already published in the second volume ; and which, at the 
time of its publication, received the approval of Dr. Greene, then 
the honored father of the Presbyterian Church. 

Among the documents written by others, and quoted against me, 
was one by an anonymous writer, signing himself an Edwardean . — 
a violent and bitter assailant of Dr. Taylor, — who to this day has not 
thought fit to assume the responsibility of writing a work which was 
so generally regarded with regret by his friends. Another was a 
letter to me, by the Rev. Asa Rand, the origin of which seems to 
have been his dissatisfaction that I did not adopt and defend those 
peculiarities of the taste scheme which he regarded as of funda- 
mental importance. The object for which these documents were 
quoted was to produce the impression at the "West that I was 
extensively regarded at the East as not sound in the faith, even 
before I removed from New England. 

In addition to these things, strenuous efforts were made to connect 
me with whatever was peculiarly odious or alarming just at that 
time. In particular, the prosecutor sought to associate me with 
certain recent and odious developments of Perfectionism, with which 
I had never had any connection but as an opponent. 

Moreover, as much alarm and hostility had been excited by the 
sentiments and measures of Mr. Finney, an attempt was also made 
to identify me with him. 

When it is considered how inadequate and often erroneous were 
the views of many concerning the opinions of all with whom it was 
thus sought to identify me in odium, some faint conception may be 
formed, at this day, of the nature and power of the effort thus made 
to blast my reputation, and destroy my influence in the Presby- 
terian Church, especially in a Theological Seminary. 

Recourse was had also to certain statements which I had made 
with reference to the incorporation of a false philosophy with the 
creeds of the Reformation, which seemed to implicate the standards 



10 



INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



of the Presbyterian Church. These statements, however, were 
made on the assumption that the ancient interpretation, which had 
ever been regarded by New England divines as the true one, was, 
in fact, the true one. But about the time of my removal to the 
"West this was called in question by Princeton divines, and a new 
exposition given to the terms of the creeds, which, obviating the 
difficulties I had always felt, and corresponding with my own belief, 
I adopted on my trial. 

To make the matter plain, it is enough to advert to the fact, that 
on comparing the statements which I have made in vol. i. pp. 65 — 
68, concerning the creeds of the Reformation, with my statements 
concerning them in my subsequent trials, at first sight there might 
appear to be an inconsistency between the two. There is, how- 
ever, in fact, no inconsistency. The difference arises from the 
change just mentioned in the interpretation of the Confession of 
Faith, and of the creeds of the Reformation, on certain points. To 
illustrate this, we need only to refer to some prominent historical 
facts. 

For many years the Edwardean divines of New England regarded 
the Confession of Faith as teaching the imputation of Adam's sin to 
his posterity, and their guilt and exposure to punishment for his 
act, in its strict sense, and according to the obvious and popular 
import of the language used. It was also regarded as teaching the 
absolute and natural inability of sinners to perform the duties 
demanded of them by God. To these doctrines were added the 
doctrine of a limited atonement, and of an eternal election based on 
such limitation. Not only did the New England divines suppose 
that these doctrines were taught in the Confession of Faith, but the 
old school Presbyterians of the Middle States asserted the same. 
On this ground they were assailed by Whelpley in his " Triangle." 
Nor in reply did they ever intimate that they did not regard the 
doctrines which he assailed as the true sense of the Confession of 
Faith. It was with this view of the import of these standards that 



INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



11 



I used the language referred to, and all similar language used before 
my removal to the West. 

It so happened, however, that, about the time of my removal, the 
Princeton divines, under the stress of their controversies with New 
England, introduced a new exposition of the Confession of Faith on 
the most important and difficult of these points, — I refer to the 
imputation and guilt of Adam's sin. In this they denied all that 
the New England divines had opposed, — namely, a mysterious union 
with Adam, so as literally to sin in his sin ; or a transfer of his 
moral character to us ; or any real and proper guilt for his act, 
and any true and proper punishment for it. They contended that 
the words guilt and punishment were not to be taken in their com- 
mon and popular sense, but in a sense strictly technical and theologi- 
cal, to denote social liability to evil, in consequence of the act of 
Adam, which evil is technically called punishment. 

These views were set forth at length in the Princeton Repertory 
and in Hodge's Commentary on the Romans ; and it was affirmed 
that they had been the views of the Reformers from the beginning, 
and of the Orthodox as far back as to the days of Augustine. Of 
this they quoted what seemed to be sufficient proof. 

The effect of this was a renunciation of the old Triangular inter- 
pretation (so called), by which the Confession of Faith was brought 
into accordance with the views which New England divines and I 
myself had always defended, rejecting what we had always regarded 
as false and pernicious theories, interwoven with the real doctrines 
of the Gospel. In these circumstances, I saw no reason for not 
adopting this mode of interpreting the Confession, and did adopt it. 
I also so interpreted the language used to express the sinner's ina- 
bility as to accord with my interpretation of similar language in 
the Bible ; that is, so as to denote moral inability, or a strong and 
voluntary aversion to duty. The doctrine of limited atonement I 
do not regard as taught in the Confession. 

As thus interpreted, it is plain that the Confession of Faith is 
free from the false theories which, according to the first mode of 



12 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 



interpretation, rendered it justly liable to the censures which I 
bestowed upon it. As first understood, I do not retract those censures. 
But understood as I interpreted it, in accordance with the Princeton 
divines, it deserves the commendations which I have bestowed upon 
it, so far as the substance of doctrine is concerned, though such a 
technical use of the terms guilt, punishment, &c, is not desirable, 
because so liable to be misunderstood. 

I ought, however, to add, that this interpretation of Princeton 
was an entire innovation on the old Triangular theology, which for 
many years had so violently assailed the New England divines. 
They retained, to be sure, the old words, but they gave them a New 
England sense, and affirmed that it was the true and original 
sense. 

Since then, the Princeton divines seem to have pursued an uncer- 
tain course. They have not formally renounced their late ground, 
and I trust they will not ; and yet they have quoted, with applause, 
men who teach the doctrine of imputation in the very sense in 
which they formerly disclaimed it. Whether this has arisen from 
the want of perspicacity, or from a real change of opinion, or from 
a desire to please both sides, I am unable to say. 

One thing, however, must be admitted as true, — that there are 
many, both in this country and in the Old World, who are not yet 
willing to adopt their New England exposition of the standards of 
their Church, but still hold them in such a sense as to be exposed 
to the criticisms which I originally directed against that exposi- 
tion. 

There is reason to hope that the recent Princeton exposition of 
the standards will be received as the true one, for it is by all means 
to be desired that the influence of documents so ancient and powerful 
should be on the side of truth. On this supposition, I wish my 
censures to be understood not as directed against the standards, 
but against a prevalent, erroneous and injurious interpretation of 
them. 



SERMON I. 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 
" Without me ye can do nothing," — John 15 : 5. 

It is manifest, from the Bible, that Jesus Christ is the 
acting Divinity of the universe. Everywhere the attributes, 
works and worship, which belong to God, are ascribed to 
him. Omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity, 
immutability, infinite benevolence, justice, mercy and truth, 
are his attributes ; and his works are such as correspond with 
them. He made all things, and by him all things consist. 
It is He who in the beginning said, " Let there be light, and 
there was light;" who is revealed as " upholding all things 
by the word of his power;" who governs material agents, 
and sways the sceptre of moral empire over earth and heaven. 
The law is in his hand as Mediator, and the Gospel with its 
remedial influence; and he is "head over all things to the 
church." It was his praise which the morning stars "sang 
together," and which animated the heavenly host when they 
shouted, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
good will toward men." 

The text announces the universal and entire dominion of 
Jesus Christ, and the universal and entire dependence of man 
upon him for ability to do anything. This dependence, like 
the nature of his government, is of two kinds, natural and 
moral. The one is occasioned by our incapacity of self-exist- 

vol. in. 2 



14 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

ence, and self-sustained physical action. The other is a 
dependence resulting from our sinful character, and the con- 
sequent necessity of an atonement and a moral renovation to 
secure our pardon and meetness for heaven. 

I propose, in this discourse, to give a Scriptural account 
of the dependence of man upon Jesus Christ, in both these 
respects ; as a creature and as a sinner. 

As a creature, it is obvious that man is dependent on 
Christ for all his natural and moral powers. In his material 
organization, it was Christ that "did see his substance yet 
being unperfect, and in whose book all his members were 
written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet 
there was none of them." It was Christ who created his 
mind, his power of thought, and of mental and moral action ; 
his perception, judgment, reason ; his capacity of happiness 
and misery ; his ability — under the. guidance and influence 
of the government of God — to choose the good and refuse 
the evil. These are all attributes given him in creation, and 
from the constitution according to which his being will be 
continued. 

But is there, in this beautiful structure of body and mind, 
any self-preserving energy, that can dispense with the con- 
stant upholding power of Christ ? None. Nothing is self- 
existent but God. "In him [Christ] we live, and move, and 
have our being." That he is as able to-create mind as to 
create matter, who can doubt ? That he is as able to create 
accountable agents, to be governed by the laws and admin- 
istration of his moral kingdom, as to create animals to be gov- 
erned by appetite and instinct, who will deny ? And that he 
has created and does uphold and govern man, as a rational, 
free, and accountable agent, we know, not only from his own 
testimony, but from our own perfect consciousness. 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGEXCY. 



15 



It is equally apparent from Revelation, that men are de- 
pendent on Jesus Christ for the successful application of their 
natural powers. The springs of life unci the occasions of 
disease are all at his disposal. The great laws of nature are 
the instruments of his power, to kill and to make alive.. When 
he purifies the atmosphere, health follows the journeys of the 
sun ; and when he gives commandment, the poisonous epi- 
demic moves onward, and wraps around the earth the belt 
of death. There is no skill that can fortify against it, no 
flight that can escape it. no power that can resist it. And 
when he would save, there are no perils that can baffle his 
protection. Myriads burst into being, and rise up under his 
smile, and at his displeasure melt away like vapors before the 
sun. 

This dependence upon Christ for successful effort extends 
to the intellectual as well as to the physical nature of man. 
Through the medium of disease, he can send upon the mind 
bewildered thoughts, impaired memory, incapacity of attention, 
instability of purpose, and fear and faintness of heart. Upon 
the ordering of his Providence depend, also, not only our 
capacities, but all our opportunities for successful action. 
All have not been Luthers, or Bonapartes, who may have 
possessed the capacity of acting the part which they acted. 
He who creates the endowments of man puts them into 
ample requisition, or sends them into relative obscurity. Nor 
is it in the power of human greatness, even with opportunity, 
to secure the successful execution of the wisest plans ; for 
this depends on innumerable contingencies, unforeseen to any 
but the eye of God ; upon natural causes, unmanageable by 
human power : and upon human volitions, affected by the 
innumerable motives included in the ever-varying Providence 
of God ; and on the passions and prejudices and conflicting 



16 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



interests of men. Nothing is more impenetrable than the 
veil which hides from man those events of futurity which 
depend on human volitions and actions. 

Such is the dependence of man upon Christ as a creature. 
But there is another kind of dependence, resulting from his 
character and condition as a sinner. This condition is hope- 
less, without Christ. Direct forgiveness of sin, on condition 
of repentance, is impossible, upon principles of law. To make 
an atonement, was what man could not do ; and to save with- 
out an atonement, was " what the law could not do." The 
influence of law depends on its rewards and its penalties, 
Suspend these, and you paralyze its power, and in the same 
degree you impair its influence upon the mind, and open the 
door to rebellion and anarchy. 

For that influence, therefore, which sustains the law of 
God, and opens the door of mercy-to a lost world, men are 
dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ. The law could not 
forgive and maintain its power. Angels could make no 
atonement, and no man could redeem his brother. Works 
could not justify, and the blood of bulls and of goats, and the 
ashes of an heifer, could not take away. sin. Thousands of 
rams, and of rivers of oil, and the blood of the first-born, 
could not purchase redemption. The inability of man to 
make an atonement for sin was therefore a natural impos- 
sibility, absolute and entire. 

It must be added, also, that, as sinners, men are dependent 
on Christ for a willingness to do anything which will save 
their souls. This is not a dependence created by any such 
constitutional defect of mind as renders obedience to the ex- 
tent of divine requirement a natural impossibility ; or by any 
destruction which sin has occasioned of the powers requisite 
to free agency and accountability. These all remain, per- 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



17 



verted, indeed. — wholly perverted, and hopeless of recovery 
without the grace of God. — but not annihilated, or impaired 
in respect to their competency to create perfect obligation, and 
to sustain, in joy or in woe forever, all the responsibilities of 
the government of God. as obeyed or disobeyed. 

Man is not so constituted as that no choice, good or evil, 
can be originated by him, which God, by an immediate effi- 
ciency, does not produce. Nor is he made accountable for 
a nature which was created in him as really as his intellect 
or his bones and sinews : nor for moral qualities, which 
are as involuntary as his appetites or his instincts, and which 
render choice, not in accordance with them, a natural impos- 
sibility. 

The dependence of man upon Christ is in no sense the 
dependence of his deficient constitution as a free agent, but of 
his deficient character as a sinner, — the obstinate perversion 
of his free agency. Still it is a dependence not the less real 
or certain : for a sinner may wilfully make his destruction 
certain, and render grace indispensable to avert his ruin. It 
is this kind of dependence, originating in the obliquity of the 
will, which meets and baffles our unaided efforts at every step 
of our attempt to persuade men to be reconciled to God. 

Who, without the grace of Christ, can keep back from sin 
the depraved mind of individuals and communities : or rouse 
man from the deep slumbers of a willing ignorance and obsti- 
nate stupidity ; or bring home the commandment, and flash 
in upon the dark unwilling mind the painful conviction of 
sin ? And even when this is done, who can subdue the will, 
but He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, — 
but He who stilled the raging tempest on the sea, — before 
whom disease fled, and death yielded up its victims 1 It 
is in the day of His power only that any sinner ever submits 

VOL. III. 2* 



18 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



to God, and becomes a willing subject of his perfect govern- 
ment. 

It seems to be thought by sinners, when they are awak- 
ened, and pressed with obligation to submit, that their act of 
refusal is not of the same nature with other acts of choice ; 
that if it be in some sense voluntary, it is in a sense so 
unique as greatly to mitigate, if not to annihilate, its crimi- 
nality. 

But, in respect to its being the voluntary action of the 
mind, it is as really so as any act of choice whatever, and is 
distinguished from ordinary volitions only by this, — that it 
includes and absorbs, more entirely than any other, the whole 
energy of the mind, and comprehends in it the greatest 
amount and intensity of criminal purpose of which a sinful 
mind is capable. It is the most voluntary and the most 
criminal decision of which a sinner" is capable, and made in 
defiance of the most perfect obligations to the contrary. 
Thus the Holy Ghost decides, when he comes to reprove the 
world of sin, because they believe not. And yet it is a 
decision, in point of fact, irrevocable, but by the grace of 
God. 

It seems to be a fact, in the history of perverted mind, that, 
once ruined, it never recovers itself. In fallen angels it has 
not, in fallen man it does not ; but the disease rages on, un- 
reclaimed by its own . miseries, and only exasperated by 
rejected remedies. The way of man is not in himself. Wise 
is he to do evil, but to do good he has no knowledge. The 
main-spring of the soul for holy action is gone, and divine 
influence & the only substitute. It is the sinner's duty to 
repent, but he refuses. It is his duty to come to Christ, but 
lie will not. His carnal mind is enmity against God, and he 
will not submit. His heart is fully set within him to do 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



19 



evil, and lie will not turn. Motives and obligation are by bis 
obstinacy swept away. The blood of Christ and the joys of 
heaven plead in vain: and in vain are hell and destruction 
uncovered before him. 

" Madness, by nature, reigns within, 
The passions burn and rage ; 
TlLI God's own Son, with skill divine, 
The inward fire assuage. ; [ 

I have only to add. what is especially taught in the text, 
that for the continuance and consummation of holiness every 
Christian is dependent on Christ. When the heart is 
renewed, it possesses no self-preserving energy. If angels, 
great in might and perfect in holiness, and Adam, our ances- 
tor, created after the image of God, could fall, how feeble is 
the guarantee of the continuance and consummation of holiness 
from the sufficiency of its own feeble beginnings ! The 
question has been asked, whether it is possible for a saint to 
fall : and the answer is, that, left to himself, and aside from 
the preservation of Christ, it is not only possible that he may 
fall, but certain that he will fall. Not because his growth 
in grace and perseverance is a natural impossibility ; not 
because he cannot so watch, and pray, and strive, and fight, 
as to endure to the end: but because, through remaining; 
sin. and deceitfulness, and sloth of heart, he will not watch, 
and pray, and strive, and fight, so as to obtain the victory, 
except as Jesus watches over him, and intercedes for him, 
and sustains, and protects, and guides, and gives him the 
victory. 

To this plain Scriptural account of man's dependence on 
Christ for his capacities and powers of action as a free agent, 
and also for their restoration by grace to their unperverted 



20 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



exercise, it might seem as if no objection could be raised ; and 
yet no subject has been beset with objections more numerous, 
acute, or perplexing. To some of these I propose to attend, 
in the sequel of this discourse. 

Objection 1. It is objected that the " doctrine of depend- 
ence on the sovereign grace of God for the commencement and 
continuance of evangelical obedience is inconsistent with the 
doctrine of man's free agency and accountability ; — that the 
two doctrines never have been and never will be reconciled ; — 
that all who have made the attempt have but darkened coun- 
sel by words without knowledge ; — and that all who preach 
man's dependence on the Holy Spirit for regeneration, and 
then call upon him to repent, and obey the Gospel, contra- 
dict, in one part of their discourse, what they inculcate in 
another." 

Answer. If the dependence of a sinner upon the special 
influence of the Spirit for ability to obey the Gospel were 
occasioned by such a constitution of mind as renders obedi- 
ence a natural impossibility — for want of adequate powers, or 
knowledge, or motives — then it would be impossible to recon- 
cile such dependence with accountability ; and it might truly 
be said they never have been and never will be reconciled. 

It must certainly be admitted that, if God should command 
exercises which man can no more put forth than he can create 
a world, and should not himself work in him to produce them, 
it w T ould be the requisition of a natural impossibility, which 
could not be reconciled with a just accountableness. Or, if 
he should command a change of moral tastes or instincts, 
which are a part of the soul's created constitution, upon which 
the will cannot act, but which do themselves govern the will 
as absolutely as the helm governs the ship, then, also, the 
thing required would be a natural impossibility, and could not 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



21 



be reconciled with free agency and accountability. But where 
is the inconsistency with free agency and accountability in 
the present case ? 

God commands the sinner to obey the Gospel ; and the sin- 
ner, thoroughly furnished with all the powers and means 
of moral agency, refuses to obey. Rewards, threatenings, 
entreaties, expostulations, judgments and mercies, exhaust 
their power upon him, and he refuses ; he tvill not come to 
Christy and resists ahvays the Holy Ghost. And what 
is there here to destroy free agency ? Who puts forth a more 
giant free agency than the sinner, fully set to do evil? 
Would flexible wickedness be blamable, and is inflexible obsti- 
nacy blameless ? If depraved a little, would he have no cloak 
for his sin ; and do his crimes whiten, and his obligations fail, 
as his heart strengthens itself in opposition to God? 

'•'But, if he will not repent unless God, by his special 
grace, interpose, how can he be to blame?" He can be to 
blame, because it is his duty to repent on the ground of his 
capacity and the divine requirement, and he refuses. He can 
be to blame, as the drunkard can be for his intemperance, 
because he is able and only unwilling to reform ; as the thief 
can be, though he may never cease to do evil : as the pirate 
can be, though he may go on to shed blood till justice over- 
takes him. 

" But is not his destruction certain, if the Lord does not 
have mercy upon him?" Most assuredly. "'Well, then, 
how can he be to blame ? " Because, with the plenary pow- 
ers of a free agent, he has violated the law of the universe, 
and trodden under foot the blood of atonement, and despised 
the riches of the goodness of God, until public justice demands 
his death. Cannot a criminal deserve punishment unless 
some way is open for his actual escape from punishment, — 



22 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



a way, too, which shall overrule his own contemptuous and 
obstinate rejection of proffered mercy? 

And what has the certainty of his perseverance in evil to 
do with the reality of his free agency, or the mitigation of 
his guilt ? Is uncertainty of choice and character essential to 
virtue'? There is not a maxim of greater folly. Who does 
not know that good and ill desert in character rises with the 
relative certainty of its continuance? Is not the glorious 
God worthy of all praise, and Jesus Christ of all confidence, 
and Satan of all execration, though the choice and character 
of each will never change ? And is not this the decision of 
common sense ? Whose virtue and vice have reached their 
height or degradation more entirely than those, on the one 
hand, whose integrity is not suspected of change, or whose 
baseness, on the other, is hopeless- of reformation ? The sin- 
ner can be accountable, then, and he is accountable, for his 
impenitence and unbelief, though he will not turn, and God 
may never turn him, because he is able and only unwilling to 
do what God commands, and which, being done, would save 
his soul. Indeed, to be able and unwilling to obey God is 
the only possible way in which a free agent can become 
deserving of condemnation and punishment. So long as he 
is able and willing to obey, there can be no sin ; and the 
moment the ability of obedience ceases, the commission of sin 
becomes impossible.^ 

Objection 2. " This distinction between the ability of 
man as a free agent, and his inability as a sinner, is a mere 
metaphysical subtilty, which common minds cannot under- 
stand, and which is only calculated to perplex and bewilder." 

Answer. It is not a metaphysical subtilty, nor a distinc- 

* Dr. Wilson founds one charge of heresy on this passage. 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



23 



tion which cannot be understood. It is, on the contrary, a 
distinction singularly plain, and obvious to popular apprehen- 
sion, and one recognized and sanctioned by the common sense 
of all mankind. The difference between unthinking matter 
and mind. — between a beast and a man. an idiot and a 
rational being, — between government by instinct or force 
and government by law, — between an infant who cannot, and 
a sluggard who will not work. — between the rich man, who 
is able and unwilling to give, and the poor man, who is will- 
ing but unable, — between subjects who are compelled to fight 
against their country, or those who do it voluntarily, — is as 
plain to the common as to the most profound minds. There 
is no position which unites more universally and entirely the 
suffrages of the whole human race than the necessity of a 
capacity for obedience to the existence of obligation, and to the 
desert of punishment for non- obedience.* 

The belief, in natural philosophy, that no effect can exist 
without a cause, is not more deep and universal in the mind 
of man, than the belief that, in moral government, no obliga- 
tion can be created without a capacity commensurate with 
the demand^ and which renders it practicable and reason- 
able : and, on the contrary, where all the requisite powers 
are believed to exist, and their required exercise is prevented 
~nly as a matter of choice, there, without a dissenting voice, 
human nature awards guilt and desert of punishment. Man 
is so formed as to see and feel the difference between his own 
voluntary and involuntary action. His knowledge of his vol- 
untariness and desert is of all knowledge the most perfect ; 
ind so perfect that he cannot reason it away by any possible 
sophistry, more than he can reason away his eyesight with 

* Another charge is based on this passage. 



24 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



his eyes open, or his own existence against consciousness. 
And this consciousness of accountability, attached to his own 
voluntary action, man ascribes, by analogy, to the voluntary 
actions of other men ; and never, in his own case, or in the 
case of others, ascribes it to any actions which are not volun- 
tary, but which are instinctive or coerced. 

This is the basis of all distinction between right and wrong, 
which pervades the family in its moral government, and which 
runs through all the forms of human association in civil 
government. And no doubt the same analogy guides the 
judgment and feelings of angels, and all the high intelligences 
of the universe; insomuch, that the intellect and the con- 
sciousness of the universe must be unmade and reversed, before 
the justice of God can be reconciled with the requisition of 
natural impossibilities, and the punishment of subjects for not 
doing what they could not; and an equal reverse of the 
constitution and public opinion of the universe must take 
place, before the voluntary, obstinate refusal to obey the com- 
mands of God, as a practicable and reasonable service, shall 
fail to bring out from the obedient and disobedient alike the 
universal decision of guilt and just condemnation. 

Is it a metaphysical trifle, then, whether God commands 
eflects in his moral government, without an adequate ground 
or reason in his subjects for their existence ? Is it not the 
pivot on which turns the question of its rectitude or injustice, 
of the riches of its goodness and mercy, or its unparalleled 
cruelty and severity 1 If the command to perform natural 
impossibilities, and punishment for their non-performance, is 
not unjust, what is unjust 1 What could the most high God 
do that would be unjust 1 

It has been said that, " though man has lost his ability to 
obey, God has not lost his right to command. 7 ' But can the 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



25 



rights of a moral government survive the extinction of those 
attributes which constitute accountability? Had the fall 
produced universal idiocy, would the rights of moral govern- 
ment have survived the universal extinction of reason ? Had 
the fall reduced our race to the capacity of mere animals, 
would the rights of moral government have still remained 1 
If the ability to obey were as really gone as if reason were 
extinct, or men had become animals, or machines, or trees ; 
could the rights of moral government remain, when the attri- 
butes of accountability had ceased to be ? 

The capacity of man for moral government as a free agent, 
taken with the reasonableness of divine requirements as corre- 
sponding with it and sustained by it : and the dependence of 
man, as a sinner, upon the free and sovereign grace of God, 
are the pillars of the Mediator's throne : the one of his jus- 
tice, the other of his mercy. These distinctions; therefore, 
are not trifles. It is ^race abounding in the restoration to 
unperverted action of free agency self-perverted to a just 
condemnation, which inspires and perpetuates the song which 
no one but the ransomed of the Lord can sing. 

Objection 3. "But what do you mean by natural 
ability in a free agent to put forth right spiritual exercises ; 
and what have natural powers to do in the putting forth of 
holy affections ? 

Answer. I would ask. in answer. What is meant by the 
free agency of man. which all admit to be real ? Does it 
mean only the unavoidable necessity of sinning on the one 
hand, and the natural impossibility of obedience on the other ? 
But, if it does mean anything which is requisite to constitute 
obligation and guilt, what less can it mean than the capacity 
of choice and action, commensurate with the divine require- 
ment 3 Or is it a word without meaning, which has come 

VOL. III. 3 



26 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



down with our creeds to amuse the ear, and keep off odium 
from a system of real fatality ? 

By natural ability, I mean what the law of God means, 
when it says, "Thoushalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, 
and with all thy mind ; " and what the Gospel means, when, 
in the form of a parable, it declares, that he gave " to every 
man according to his several ability," and that the moral 
obligation to improve corresponded with the talents given, 
and the ability possessed for their improvement. 

I mean, that God does not reap where he has not sowed, or 
gather where he has not strewed ; but requires according to 
what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not, — 
mu<ph of him to whom much is given, and little of him to 
whom little is given. 

I mean, that God knows how to create intelligent beings, 
with such powers of mind that, being upheld and placed 
under law, they are so capable of obedience as to create 
perfect and infinite obligation to obey ; the violation of 
which brings upon the sinner a just condemnation to eternal 
death. 

I mean, what the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian 
and Congregational churches means, ^ that " God hath endued 
the will of man with that natural liberty and power of 
acting upon choice, that it is neither forced, nor by any abso- 
lute necessity of nature determined to do good or evil;" so 
that by his decrees " neither is God the author of sin, nor 
is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the 

* See articles 44 Free Will," and 44 Of God's Eternal Decree," in Cam- 
bridge and Saybrook Platform, and in the Confession of Faith of the Pres- 
byterian Church. 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



27 



liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather 
established.'' 

Objection 4. But it is said, "It seems to amount to 
about the same thing, whether a man cannot, or can and 
will not, obey the Gospel, or whether his impotency be 
natural or moral; he is equally certain to perish, if God does 
not remove it.' ? 

Answer. It might as well be said that muscular power 
perverted is as if it were not ; that intellect perverted is the 
same as idiocy ; and conscience seared is the same as if none 
had been given ; that bread rejected to starvation is the same 
as inevitable famine, — as to say that the perversion of all the 
competent powers of obedience is the same thing as their 
non-existence. 

Does it amount to the same thing, whether a man cannot 
be temperate, or can be and will not ? cannot be honest, or 
can be and will not ? A man, as a free agent, may, indeed, 
make his own destruction as certain as if he could not help 
it. But does it make no difference, as to his character and 
desert, whether he perishes from the natural impossibility of 
being saved, or from a voluntary obstinacy in rejecting salva- 
tion ? And does it amount to the same thing, in respect to 
God and his glorious government, whether sinners fall under 
the operation of its penalties from a natural impossibility of 
escape, or by a voluntary obstinacy in despising the riches of 
the goodness of God? Provided a man, as a matter of 
certainty, dies at a given time, does it amount to the same 
thing, whether he was killed unavoidably, or committed 
suicide ? was thrust off a precipice against his will, or threw 
himself off ? was poisoned unwittingly, or purposely poisoned 
himself? was assassinated by the dagger of another, or thrust 
a dagger into his own bosom ? 



28 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Objection 5. "If man, as a free agent, is able of him- 
self to repent and obey the Gospel, and is only dependent as a 
sinner, then the atonement ay as unnecessary, and he may be 
his own Saviour." 

Answer. We have seen that the dependence of man on 
Christ for an atonement was created by the natural impossi- 
bility of his making one. It was what the law could not do, 
and man could not do, and none but Christ could do. But 
the sinner's dependence on the Holy Ghost is occasioned by 
his wilful refusal to accept the atonement. Had he been 
willing to accept an atonement, he could not have made one. 
But his voluntary and obstinate rejection of the atonement 
made for him, and offered to him, is what renders the Holy 
Spirit indispensable to his salvation. 

Objection 6. " This distinction between man's natural 
ability, as a free agent, and his dependence only as a sinner, 
is a mere human theory, not taught in the Bible." . 

Answer. It is a distinction taught in the Bible as 
plainly, variously and copiously, as any other doctrine 
whatever, .It has the same relation to the system of revealed 
truth which the being of God has, and his moral government, 
and the sinfulness of man, and the atonement, and renovation 
by the Spirit, and justice in condemnation, and grace and 
mercy in redemption. Like the doctrine of cause and effect 
in the natural world, it is assumed ; like the being of God, 
it is taken for granted, and constantly acted upon ; like the 
existence of man, and of the world, it is treated as a matter 
of fact. 

Besides, capacity, as the ground and measure of obligation, 
is expressly recognized as a fundamental principle of the 
government of God. The law itself recognizes it, in demand- 
ing love with all the heart, soul, mind and strength. The 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



29 



Gospel recognizes it, in the bestowment of talents upon every 
man according to his several ability, and the award of punish- 
ment for ability neglected ; and by repelling as a slander the 
implication that God demands the performance of impossible 
service, reaping where he had not sowed, &c. Obligation is 
expressly graduated according to what a man hath, and not 
according to what he hath not, — much of him to whom much 
is given, and little of him to whom little is given. Accord- 
ingly, evangelical obedience is ever enjoined as a reasonable 
service, for which, as to natural power, every man is 
thoroughly furnished, and for the neglect of which he has no 
excuse. Obedience is represented as the mind's action, and a 
proper object of command. " Come unto me, all ye that 
labor." " Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why 
will ye die % " " My son, give me thine heart." " Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ." "Repent ye." "Turn your- 
selves and live ye." " Humble yourselves in the sight of the 
Lord." " Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." 
Do all these mental and moral acts, commanded under the 
high responsibilities of eternal life or eternal death, as utterly 
surpass the capacity of man, as the making of worlds, or 
raising the dead ] Instead of this, unbelief is regarded as the 
sinner's voluntary, ungrateful, wanton act of moral suicide, 
in rejecting Christ; refusing him, setting him at naught, 
treading under foot his blood, always resisting his Spirit, and 
despising the riches of the goodness of God. So far is it from 
being a matter of natural impotency, and so needless is it, 
that it is set forth as a most wonderful phenomenon. " What 
could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not 
done in it ? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring 
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" "Hear, 
heavens: and give ear, earth: for the Lord hath spoken: — 
vol. in. 3* 



30 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



I have nourished and brought up children, and they have 
rebelled against me." " He marvelled because of their unbe- 
lief." But is it wonderful that nurtured children should not 
do impossible things ? Is it wonderful that a vineyard, how- 
ever cultivated, should not produce impossible fruits ? Could 
it be marvellous that those to whom an act of faith was as 
impossible as an act of creation should not work miracles in 
its production ? 

But it is admitted that no new faculties are created in 
regeneration. What, then, is there to be changed, but the 
will? This, as we have seen, is the change commanded. 
Alienation is the crime, reconciliation the duty. Hence the 
means employed by Heaven are moral, — the law of the Lord, 
the word of God, the incorruptible seed, the Gospel, the cross 
of Christ, the blood of Christ. IJut what fitness have moral 
means for overcoming natural impossibilities ? The Gospel 
might as well be employed to govern the material universe, 
instead of the law of gravity, as to recover alienated mind, 
if the impediments to obedience are natural impossibilities. 
And, after all, who has ever detected the mental incapacity 
of man to obey the Gospel? The motive to do it has been 
immense, and has wrought powerfully in innumerable cases ; 
yet no defective organization has been found. On the con- 
trary, every attribute which can be conceived as requisite to 
the full capacity of obedience is discovered- and such as 
under every form of government, beside that of God, is 
admitted to constitute entire capacity, and perfect accounta- 
bility. The sinner has, indeed, abundant evidence, that to 
turn to God is difficult; evidence enough to close forever 
upon him every avenue of hope, if the Lord does not have 
mercy. But he has no evidence that the difficulty consists in 
the want of capacity for evangelical action. On the contrary, 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



31 



every step of his moral history, closely scanned, flashes con- 
viction on his conscience that the whole impediment is, in its 
nature, increase and continuance, voluntary. He is con- 
scious of setting his affections on things below, — of minding 
earthly and neglecting heavenly things. His attention to 
the one, and neglect of the other, he knows to be voluntary ; 
and his stupidity, and his darkness, and his hardness of heart, 
are the natural results of such a preference of the world, and 
neglect of the soul and the Gospel, as he knows himself to 
have been guilty of. 

And when the Holy Ghost comes to convince of sin, what 
is the sin of which he convinces 1 Is it the sin of not work- 
ing impossibilities 1 It is the sin of unbelief ; he reproves the 
world of sin, " because they believe not." He corroborates 
the forebodings and convictions of conscience, by causing the 
sinner to feel and confess the perversion of his noble powers, 
and that God would be just in his condemnation. And the 
more clear the light of his conviction shines, the more dis- 
tinct is the sinner's perception that he is — not destitute of 
capacity, but inflexibly unwilling to obey the Gospel. Does 
the Spirit of God produce convictions w T hich are contrary to 
fact, and contrary to the teachings of the Bible ? Never. 
What, then, when he moves on to that work of sovereign 
mercy, w T hich no sinner ever resisted, and without which no 
one ever submitted to God, — what does he do 3 When he 
pours the daylight of omniscience upon the soul, and comes 
to search out what is amiss, and put in order that which is 
out of the way, what impediment to obedience does he find to 
be removed, and what work does he perform ? He finds only 
the will perverted, and obstinately persisting in its sinful 
choice ; and in the clay of his power all he accomplishes is to 
make the sinner willing. 



32 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Hence, as obstinate disobedience to law and Gospel can- 
not cancel obligation or avert condemnation, those are pun- 
ished with everlasting destruction to whom no special grace 
has been afforded, on the simple ground of the perversion of 
their capacities, as free agents, to purposes of evil. It is not 
grace resisted alone, but the ability of man perverted and 
abused, that brings down upon him aggravated guilt and 
condemnation. . The influence of the Spirit belongs wholly to 
the remedial system. Whereas ability commensurate with 
requirement is the equitable and everlasting foundation of the 
eternal moral government of God. 

What was it which stopped the mouth of the man without 
a wedding garment? Would he have stood speechless, 
could he have replied truly that no garment had been 
provided for him ? or that it was such an one as no human 
power could put on ; while no divine power had been sent to 
his aid ? 

I am aware that inability of some kind to obey the 
Gospel is ascribed to man in the Bible, But it means the 
impossibility of becoming holy by any philosophical culture 
of the natural powers, or by any possible modification of our 
depraved. nature, or simply by the inflexibility of an iron will. 
" The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not sub- 
ject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they 
that are in the flesh cannot please GodP " No man can 
serve two masters." u Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 
"How can ye believe which receive honor one of another, 
and seek not the honor that cometh from God only ? " " The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for 
they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned." "How« ye 3 being 
evil, speak good things?" Do these and similar passages 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



33 



teach that it is an absolute natural impossibility for an 
alienated sinner to become reconciled to God, — to crucify the 
flesh and to serve God in spirit, — to abandon mammon and 
cleave to God, — to give up the praise of men, and seek the 
honor that cometh from God ? What greater injustice could 
be done to God, or violence to the Bible, than to represent 
the entire requisitions of his government upon the heart as 
the demand of natural impossibilities, under the fearful sanc- 
tions of eternal death? Again, it is said, "No man can 
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw 
him." "Without me ye can do nothing." But do these 
and similar passages intend a natural impossibility? Do they 
not rather speak a language appropriately expressing a fixed 
aversion, which is voluntary, and worthy of blame ? 

There is a single maxim of interpretation, which lies at the 
foundation of all exposition, and of all intelligible intercourse 
of man with man by signs, which sends a beam of light on 
this subject throughout the Bible, and forbids us to give to 
these passages the import of natural inability, and compels us 
to understand them as declaring only the inflexible obstinacy 
of man in sin. The maxim is, that language is to be under- 
stood in accordance with the known attributes of the subject. 
Now, when God is represented as legislating for the natural 
world, and sending out his commandment, and all nature 
moves, trembles, rejoices, obeys and praises Him ; are we per- 
mitted to understand that the material creation, in all its 
departments of suns, and comets, and worlds, and winds, and 
waves, and mountains, and hills, and valleys, and cattle, and 
creeping things, is a cluster of so many intelligences, blessed 
with the knowledge of God, and pressed, by the responsibili- 
ties of accountable creatures, to obey and to praise him ? 
Bat why not? Simply because we are acquainted with the 



34 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



attributes of these things, and, from the known absence of 
intellect and voluntary power, are constrained to understand 
the phraseology as the language of metaphor. 

By what authority, then, when we enter the moral king- 
dom of God, composed, of mind, and law, and free agency, 
and accountability, and justice, and grace, and reward, and 
punishment, do we disregard the known attributes of account- 
able mind, and the revealed maxims of the divine moral gov- 
ernment, and give to inability, when applied to voluntary 
beings and commanded duties, a passive and material import 1 
Was there ever a greater, or a more needless, or a more per- 
nicious, perversion of the laws of exposition? When the 
entire authority of heaven is made to bear on rational, immor- 
tal, accountable creatures, under the high responsibilities of 
eternal life or eternal death, and these commands are enforced 
by entreaty and expostulation, and their disregard is threat- 
ened with eternal ruin, — when the glory of God is to shine 
through eternity in his justice, and the riches of his goodness 
in his mercy,— is the dark lantern of human inability the only 
surface upon which the light is to fall that is to reflect upon 
principalities and powers, in heavenly places, the manifold 
wisdom of God ? No language is more frequent, in the com- 
mon intercourse of men, than the terms unable, cannot, and 
the like, to express either slight or determined and unchang- 
ing aversion. And the same use of these terms pervades the 
Bible. Inability, meaning only voluntary aversion, or per- 
manent choice or disinclination, is ascribed to God, to Christ, 
and to good men, in as strong terms as inability to obey the 
Gospel is ascribed to sinners. 

1. To God. "God, that cannot lie." u The new moons 
and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. ?> 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



35 



** Though Moses and Samuel stood before me 3 yet my mind 
could not be toward this people." 

2. To Christ. "He could there do no mighty work.' ' 
" How often would I have gathered thy children together, 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and 
ye would not." 

3. To good men. cr Can ye drink of the cup that I drink 
of?" " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for 
his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is 
born of God." Is it a natural impossibility for a Christian to 
commit sin ? 

4. To unsanctified men. "This is a hard saying, who 
can hear it? " " And Joshua said unto the people, Ye can- 
not serve the Lord, for he is a holy God." " So we see that 
they could not enter in, because of unbelief." "They that 
are in the flesh cannot please God." None of these are 
natural impossibilities, and only moral inabilities, consisting 
in voluntary sinful action. 

I have only to add, that nowhere do the Scriptures attach 
blame to an inability, resulting from inadequate powers, fac- 
ulties, opportunities or means ; and everywhere they do hold 
men accountable where the natural capacity is entire, and 
men are only obstinately unwilling to obey. There is not an 
instance upon record in the Bible, in which, according to the 
laws of fair interpretation, a natural impossibility of perform- 
ing any spiritual duty which God has required is ascribed to 
man. 

Objection 6. 11 This doctrine of man's ability as a free 
agent, and of his dependence on Christ only as a sinner, is an 
innovation upon the received doctrine of the orthodox church, 
and therefore the preceding exposition cannot be regarded as 



86 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



correct. Has the entire church, in all ages, misunderstood 
the Bible? " 

Answer. The facts in the case are just the other way. 
The doctrine of man's free agency and natural ability 
as the ground of obligation and guilt, and of his impo- 
tency of will by reason of sin : has been the received doc- 
trine of the orthodox church i?i all ages. 

The Christian fathers taught the free agency of man, in 
opposition to the Stoics, who taught the doctrine of fate ; to 
the Gnostics, who taught a material depravity ; and to the 
Manicheans, who taught a mental depravity in the essence of 
the soul. They taught free will, — not like Pelagius, in 
opposition to a bias of will to evil, occasioned by the fall, 
but in opposition to a natural impossibility of right action. 
In this view, with the Gnostic and Manichean heresies before 
them, Justin Martyr says : " The doctrine of the Christians is 
this — that nothing is done or suffered according to fate, but 
that every man doth good or evil according to his own free 
choice" And Origen says : " The soul acts by her own 
choice, and it is free for her to incline to whatever part she 
will" And Chrysostom, and Cyprian, and Jerome, are 
equally full and explicit on the subject. 5 * Indeed, as Cal- 
vin says in substance, and as is common in such circum- 
stances, they leaned off so far from fatality and material and 
mental depravity created in the soul — as doctrines violating 
common sense, and tending to sloth — that sometimes they 
seemed by the capacity of free will to supersede the necessity 
of special grace, though in other places they teach that man 
is despoiled of all strength to recover himself to holiness by 

* See quotations, in Edwards on the Will, part n. sect. 5, and in Whitby 
on the Five Points, Discourse iv. chaps. 4 and 5. 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



37 



his free will, and ascribe everything that is good in man to 
the Holy Spirit.^ They were far, certainly, from being 
expert theologians, and further still from being correct phil- 
ologists, in the exposition of the Bible. And yet they did per- 
ceive and firmly lay hold upon the two cardinal points, — of 
man's free agency as the ground of his obligation ; and of his 
dependence on special grace for his restoration to holiness. 

The same distinction was made in the controversy between 
Augustine and Pelagius. They did not use the term freewill 
in the same sense, however, as the earlier fathers. In this 
controversy it ceased to be employed in opposition to fatalism 
and material and mental depravity, and to teach free agency 
as consisting in the capacity of choice. The natural ability of 
man as a free agent, and as the foundation of moral obliga- 
tion, and guilt, and punishment, was not denied, but was 
equally admitted on both sides. The dispute respected wholly 
the character of man as affected by the fall, and particularly 
of his will, whether it is powerfully biased to evil, or re- 
mains free from bias, and equally inclined to good as to 
evil : whether it is so competent by its oion poiver, under 
the moral suasion of truth, to recover itself to holiness as 
actually to do it ; or is so biased and sinfidly impotent 
as to render a spiritual reformation hopeless but by the 
special influence of the Holy Spirit. Augustine insisted 
on the bias of the will to evil, in consequence of the fall, and 
denied its self-restoring energy; while Pelagius denied the 
perverting influence of the fall, and asserted the sufficiency of 
the will and of the suasion of truth to the purposes of spir- 
itual renovation. 

The distinction, therefore, made in this discourse, between 

* Institutes, book n. chap. 2, sects. 4 and 9. 
VOL. III. 4 



38 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the ability of man as a free agent, and his dependence as a 
sinner, was recognized by Augustine^ and by the earlier 
fathers. 

The same distinction was made by the Reformers, and by 
the Calvinists down to the Synod of Dort. 

Luther taught the natural liberty of man as a free agent, 
and the bondage of his will as a totally-depraved sinner. 
u There is, 7 ' he says, " no restraint either on the divine or 
human will. In both cases the will does what it does, whether 
good or bad, simply, and as at perfect liberty, in the exercise 
of its own faculty. ... So long as the operative grace of God 
is absent from us, everything we do has in it a mixture of 
evil ; and, therefore, of necessity, our works avail not to sal- 
vation. Here I do not mean a necessity of compulsion, but 
a necessity as to the certainty of the event. A man who 
has not the spirit of God does evil willingly and spontane- 
ously. He is not violently impelled, against his will, as a 
thief is to the gallows. But the man cannot alter his dispo- 
sition to evil ; nay, even though he may be externally re- 
strained from doing evil, he is averse to the restraint, and his 
inclination remains still the same. Again, when the Holy 
Spirit is pleased to change the will of a bad man, the new 
man still acts voluntarily ; he is not compelled by the Spirit 
to determine contrary to his will, but his will itself is 
changed, and he cannot now do otherwise than love the good, 
as before he loved the evil; * that is, a man cannot choose 
opposites at the same time ; cannot choose against a present 
choice which yet remains. 

Calvin declares that God is voluntary in his goodness ; 
Satan in his wickedness ; and man in his sin. " "We must t 

* De Servo Arbitrio, as quoted in Milner's Church History, vol. v. cent. 
16 5 chap. 12, sect. 2. 



DEPENDENCE AXD FREE AGENCY. 



39 



therefore observe." he says, "that man. having been cor- 
rupted by the fall, sins voluntarily, not with reluctance or 
constraint : with the strongest propensity of disposition, not 
vrith violent coercion : with the bias of his own passions, and 
not with external compulsion.*' He quotes Bernard, as 
agreeing with Augustine, in saying, " Among all the animals, 
man alone is free : and yet, by the intervention of sin, he suf- 
fers a species of violence, but from the will, not from 
nature, so that he is not thereby deprived of his innate 
liberty.'' Both Augustine and the Reformers speak, indeed, 
of the bondage of the will, and of the necessity of sinning, 
and of the impossibility that a natural man should turn and 
save himself without grace ; but they explain themselves to 
mean that certainty of continuance in sin which arises from a 
perverted free agency, and not from any natural impossibility. 
For ••this necessity" — they say expressly — " is voluntary.'' 
1 1 We are oppressed with a yoke, but no other than that of 
voluntary servitude ; therefore our servitude renders us mis- 
erable, and our will renders us inexcusable." * 

The Synod of Dort say: " Sincerely and most truly God 
shows in his word what is pleasing to him ; namely, that they 
who are called should come to him. That many who are 
called do not come, and are not converted, — the fault of this 
is not in the Gospel, nor in Christ offered by the Gospel, nor 
in God inviting by the Gospel, and conferring various gifts 
on them, but in the persons themselves who are invited." f 

Owen says : " Man is endued with such a liberty of will as 
is free from all outward compulsion and inward necessity, 
having an elective faculty of applying itself to that which 
seems good to it. Most free it is in all its acts, both in regard 

* Calvin's Institutes, book n. chap. 8, sect. 5. 

t Scott's Articles of the Synod of Dort, chaps, in. and iv. sects. 8 and 9. 



40 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



to the object it chooseth, and in regard to that vital power 
and faculty whereby it worketh." 

It is true that the Reformers, and the disciples of Calvin, 
employ language, sometimes, which seems to deny the very 
existence of that natural ability which they concede, and to 
confound all distinctions between natural and mor&l govern- 
ment, and to throw mankind into one dark mass of impotency 
and death, from which any resurrection by human power is a 
natural impossibility. But a fair interpretation of their lan- 
guage will, for the most part, rescue them from this imputa- 
tion. And, besides, what is said loosely and oratorically by 
men is never to be so interpreted as to set aside their most 
careful, deliberate, elementary definitions. We have shown 
that the inability ascribed to man in the Bible does not imply 
any natural impotency to spiritual obedience. But the lan- 
guage of the Bible is stronger, and more unqualified, than 
that of the Reformers, being limited and explained only by the 
known attributes of the subject ; whereas the language of the 
Reformers is, at times, specific and precise, confining the 
impotency of man exclusively to the will — fairly implying 
only a moral, and not a natural inability. And when we 
consider that, in all their controversies, the free agency and 
natural ability of man were expressly admitted on both sides, 
and the sole point of debate was the moral condition of the will 
— as free from bias or under bias to evil — by what authority 
shall we metamorphose an alleged moral impotency into a 
natural impossibility y — and that at the expense, also, of 
making the greatest and best men contradict themselves ? 
Doubtless, the impression often made by their language has 
been that of natural impotency ; and, in modern days, there 
may be those who have not understood the language of the 
Reformers or the Bible on this subject, and who verily believe 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



41 



that both teach that man has no ability, of any kind or de- 
gree, to do anything which is spiritually good, and that the 
rights of God to command and to punish survive the wreck 
and extinction in his subjects of all the elements of accounta- 
bility. Of such, if there be such in the church, we have only 
to say, that w T hen, for the time, they ought to be teachers, 
they have need that some one should teach them which be the 
first principles of the oracles of God. It must be admitted, 
however, that from the primitive age down to the time of 
Edwards, few saw the subject with clearness, or treated it 
w 7 ith uniform precision and consistency. His appears to have 
been the mind that first rose above the mists which hung over 
the subject, and that saw, and developed, and fixed immuta- 
bly and clearly, its great outlines. And, like the law of 
attraction in the solar system, it reduced every conflicting 
element of theology to order ; and brought out from clouds 
and darkness the character of God ; and armed the Gospel, in 
its faithful ministration from that day to this, with a power 
unknown to it since it passed from the lips of inspired men, 
and was committed to the ministry of the uninspired. In his 
treatise on the will, he taught and proved the natural capacity 
of man as a free agent and commensurate with divine require- 
ment; that obligation to perform impossibilities cannot be 
created ; and that the inability of man to obey the Gospel con- 
sists simply and only in a voluntary opposing inclination or 
choice, which, the more inflexible it is, and the more certain 
it is never to be given up without special grace, the more 
exceedingly sinful it is and deserving of punishment. Hence, 
as simple disobedience constitutes no apology for sinning, or 
necessity for continuing to sin, he taught and practised the 
duty of calling on sinners to render evangelical obedience 
immediately, whether they would hear or whether they would 

VOL. III. 4^ 



42 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



forbear, — repelling the plea of inability, and tearing away 
excuses, and, by the authority of God, and the hopes of 
heaven, and the fears of hell, urging them to immediate sub- 
mission. From him, through Bellamy, and Witherspoon, and 
Hopkins, and Smalley, and West, and Strong, and D wight, 
and our seminaries, this doctrine of man's natural ability and 
obligation as a free agent to perform evangelical duties, and 
his inexcusable moral impotency or aversion, increasing in 
guilt with its increasing power, have become the received doc- 
trines of the New England churches ; and the preaching of 
immediate repentance and faith, as growing out of them, has 
been the practical course in the great and repeated and aug- 
menting revivals of our land. 

Objection 7. But it is said, "This doctrine of man's 
free agency and natural ability to obey the Gospel sets aside 
the doctrine of the special influence of the Spirit in regenera- 
tion ; for if man is of himself able to repent and believe, there 
is no necessity for the interposition of the Holy Spirit. 

Answer. If the doctrine of free agency and natural 
ability does set aside the necessity of a special divine influence 
in regeneration, it cannot be true ; for if there is a doctrine 
of the Bible which is unquestionable and fundamental, it is 
that of fallen man's dependence for actual holiness on the 
special influence of the Spirit ; and if there be a fact which 
every man who is saved learns experimentally, it is the cer- 
tainty of his perdition, if Christ by his Spirit does not subdue 
his will, and reconcile him to God. 

But is it true that, if man, as a free agent, is able to obey 
the Gospel, he needs no influence of the Spirit to secure his 
actual obedience? Is ability to obey evidence of the cer- 
tainty of obedience ? Do free agents perform always all the 
duties of which they are capable ? Is there no possible way 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



43 



for man to be dependent on the Holy Spirit for obedience, but 
such a constitution of mind as renders obedience a natural 
impossibility? May not alienated subjects be voluntary in 
their rebellion, and at the same time so obstinate and fully 
set therein, that if God by his Spirit does not overcome their 
opposition, they will persist in it forever ? The inference is 
as illogical as it is unscriptural, that ability to obey the Gos- 
pel implies any such certainty of obedience as supersedes the 
necessity of the Holy Spirit. 

I am aware that many good men have been exceedingly 
jealous for God on tins subject, supposing that they augment 
the evil of sin. and the justice and the mercy and the power 
of God. in exact proportion as they throw down the sinner 
into a condition of natural and absolute impotency. But, 
while I appreciate their motives, I cannot perceive the wisdom 
of their views. What possible foil to set off the evil of sin 
does natural impotency possess ? One would think that a 
subject of God's glorious government, who can, but will not, 
obey him, might appear to himself and to the universe much 
more accountable, and much more guilty, in the day of 
judgment, than one whose capacity of obedience had been 
wholly annihilated by the sin of Adam. Does it illustrate 
the glory of God's justice more to punish the helpless and 
impotent, than to punish the voluntary but incorrigible ? 
Is there a greater display of mercy in delivering a sinner 
from the calamity of a ruined constitution which makes 
obedience a natural impossibility, than in delivering him from 
a perverseness of will which despises the riches of the good- 
ness of God, and renders his condemnation as inevitable as it 
is just ? "What is the view which will press on the reminis- 
cence of the blessed in glory, and perpetuate the praises of 
heaven] Will it be a natural impossibility removed; or 



44 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



incorrigible obstinacy overcome ? As to the power of God 
displayed in regeneration no doubt it is u the exceeding 
greatness of his power to us- ward who believe, according to 
the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, 
when he raised him from the dead." But which is the great- 
est display of power, to change the natural constitution of the 
mind, or to reclaim the otherwise indomitable will of a rebel 
to loyalty and love ? Men may obliterate natural affection, 
and form habits adverse to their natural constitution ; and if 
it were only some material or intellectual defect to be supplied, 
or obstacle to be overcome, or some taste or instinct to be 
changed, it might seem a small thing for God to rectify the 
difficulty. He who could blot out and light up in a moment 
all the material orbs of the universe, with their apparatus and 
intelligent inhabitants, and who is continually creating and 
ushering into being minds around us, might seem to find but 
small occasion to display the exceeding greatness of his power, 
in the rectification of some constitutional defect. But when 
a mind, armed with such terrific power of accountable action 
as may bear justly the responsibilities imposed by God's eter- 
nal government, becomes so alienated, and fully set on evil, 
as to baffle the regular influence of law and Gospel, this 
creates an obstacle to the reclaiming of that mind vast and 
momentous ; and furnishes occasion, probably, for the great- 
est display of omnipotence ever to be witnessed by the uni- 
verse. 

The question, then, which awakens the fears of some good 
men, is not, as they suppose, the question whether man is 
actually dependent on the special influence of the Holy Spirit 
for regeneration ; but what is the nature, what the cause, 
ground or reason, of that dependence ? Is it a dependence 
created by a natural impossibility, or by the inflexible, volun- 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



45 



tarv. unreasonable opposition of a free agent to the perfect 
character and glorious government of God? From the 
time of Edwards, the latter has been, and now is, the 
received doctrine of the ministers and churches of New 
England. And yet — plain as this subject would seem to 
be, and for more than half a century settled — still it is ob- 
jected ; — 

Objection 8. That '''this doctrine of man's free agency 
and ability is but a new edition of the exploded Arminian 
r notion of the self-determining power, and conversion by moral 
suasion." 

Answer. We have seen that the Bible teaches the free 
agency and natural ability of man ; that the primitive fathers, 
and Augustine, and Luther, and Calvin, and Edwards, and 
Bellamy, and Witherspoon, and Smalley, and West, and 
Strong, and Dwight, all recognize the capacity and obligation 
of man, as a free agent ; and place his impotency exclusively 
in the perversity of his will. And is this Arminianism and 
the self-determining power 1 What is the self-determining 
power ? It is a theory devised to escape from the certainty 
of human action, as implied in the government of God accord- 
ing to the counsel of his own will. To accomplish this, it 
was insisted that all voluntary action of mind, in order to be 
praise or blame worthy, must be uncertain, and occasioned by 
no influence whatever, ab extra ; but the soul, shut up in 
vacuo, must put forth volitions, without any cause, ground, 
or reason, but its own internal sovereign good pleasure ; and 
that even choice itself was good for nothing, which was not 
the product of an antecedent choice ; so that every human 
volition must be impregnated with virtue by an antecedent 
choice, and all acts of mind by one act of choice before 
the first. This is the old Arminian notion of the self-deter- 



46 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



mining power. And is it like? Like what? Like the 
capacity of acting in the view of motives, in accordance with 
the righteous requisitions of heaven ? 

Ask Edwards, and he will reply, — that the impossibility 
of choosing right would preclude obligation and guilt ; and 
that if all which his antagonist meant by self-determining 
power was merely the capacity of choice in accordance with 
divine requirement, there could be no dispute on the subject. 
He held that it was only a moral inability, only the opposition 
of a contrary choice, which prevented a right choice in all 
cases. 

Objection 9. It is objected that, " this doctrine of 
man's ability to obey the Gospel, and his dependence only as 
a sinner, if it be not Arminianism, is tending fast that way, 
and may be expected ultimately to eventuate in the overthrow 
of evangelical doctrine and revivals, and in cold Arminian 
formality, or a subtle and virulent heresy." 

Answer. But these tendencies, hitherto, have been so 
slow in coming into being, as might well allay our fears foi s 
many generations, if not forever. From Augustine to Ed- 
wards, and from Edwards to this day, the ability of man, as 
a free agent^ has been taught, and his impotency, as consist- 
ing in a biased and perverted will : and from making the dis- 
tinction clear and prominent, Arminianism has never been 
the result ; but has resulted, as history will attest, from con- 
founding this distinction, and sinking down man to the impo- 
tency of a natural impossibility of spiritual obedience. There 
are two ways of producing Arminianism ; one is by teaching 
it, and another, more effectual, is the incorporating with the 
truth the revolting material of natural inability. The river 
whose channel is obstructed will send out its waters in lateral 
channels of desolation. Remove the obstructions, and the 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



47 



vagrant waters will return gladly to their natural course. 
The most effectual way to promote Arminianism is to 
obstruct the channel of common sense and of revelation by 
the doctrine of natural impotency ; while well-defined and 
guarded expositions of natural ability as the foundation of 
obligation, and of moral inability as consisting in obstinate 
aversion to evangelical obedience, are the most effectual means 
of its expulsion from Christendom. 

The -testimony of Neander, and of Pusey, Professor of 
Hebrew, in the University of Oxford, England, concerning 
the cause of the great German defection, speaks volumes 
on the subject. "It is a problem," says Professor Pusey, 
"of immense interest and importance to solve, how Germany, 
from having been, in appearance at least, sound, became, by 
a rapid change, and to a fearful extent, an unbelieving 
church. I was startled, when Neander, on my asking him 
to what he ascribed the progress of unbelief in Germany, said, 
£ The dead orthodoxy.' I was much prejudiced at first 
against the opinion, but came at last to no other result." * 
Now the dead orthodoxy of Germany included and was per- 
vaded by the doctrine of man's natural inability to obey the 
Gospel. 

It has been supposed by our friends at a distance that the 
great defection in New England from orthodoxy was occa- 
sioned by the new divinity, particularly the doctrine of 
natural ability and moral inability, — which was denominated 
"new divinity" fifty years ago, in opposition to what was 
then styled " old Calvinism." But the fact is, that in 
Boston and Massachusetts, as in Germany, the Arminian and 
Unitarian defection was the legitimate and undeniable pro- 



Biblical Repository for 1832, p. 586. 



48 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



duct of u dead orthodoxy." So far as the Calvinistic system, 
as expounded by Edwards and the disciples of his school, pre- 
vailed, revivals prevailed, and heresy was kept back. To its 
proud waves they presented a barrier immovable as our iron- 
bound shores ; while Calvinism, having degenerated to natu- 
ral impotency, opened the breach through which the flood 
of the Arminian and Unitarian heresy came in. Over nearly 
the whole territory where prejudice reigned against the doc- 
trines of Edwards and the revivals of his day — though his 
opponents were nominally Calvinistic — has the desolation of 
heresy rolled. And, most notoriously, it was ' 1 dead ortho- 
doxy" that opened the dikes and let in this flood; and 
equally notorious is the fact, that it is Edwardsean Evangel- 
ism which is turning back this flood, and filling the channels 
from which it is retreating with the waters of life. The more 
minutely the religious statistics of New England are exam- 
ined, the more unquestionable will the historic verity of these 
statements appear. 

It is also a fact which stands out to observation, that 
Arminian proselytism, and Unitarian and Universalist heresy, 
and infidel fatality, find the easiest access to, and make the 
most havoc in communities, in proportion as the ultra Calvin- 
ism of natural inability is more plainly and frequently incul- 
cated, and more unequivocally understood by the people. 
And far the greater proportion of the revivals of our land, 
it is well known, have come to pass under the auspices of 
Calvinism as modified by Edwards and the disciples of his 
school, and under the inculcation of ability and obligation, 
and urgent exhortations to immediate repentance and sub- 
mission to God : while congregations and regions over which 
natural impotency and dependence, and the impenitent use 
of means, and waiting God's time, have disclosed their tend- 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



49 



encies, have remained, like] Egypt, dark, beside the land of 
Goshen ; and like the mountains of Gilboa, on which there 
-was no rain, nor fields of offerings ; and like the bones in the 
valley of vision, dead, dry, very dry. Far be it from me to 
say or insinuate that no ministers are blessed with revivals 
who do not teach the doctrine of man's natural ability and 
moral inability. I mean, that where the doctrine of abso- 
lute inability is made to stand out in all its relations, and 
is unmodified by any counteracting truths, its results, so 
far as my observation has extended, are, without a single ex- 
ception, most deadly to the cause of Christ, and the souls of 
men ; and that, as a general fact, the Gospel as explained 
and pressed, upon the principles of ability and obligation, is 
more uniformly and eminently, than in any other mode of 
presentation, the power of God and the wisdom of God unto 
salvation. 

But, while I thus advocate the doctrine of man's ability as 
a free agent, and his dependence on special grace as a sinner, 
as from the commencement of my ministry to this day I have 
not ceased to do, I am far from supposing that the doctrine is 
incapable of perversion, or that there is no danger that ardent 
and inexperienced minds may give to ability and obligation 
too much, and to dependence on the special influence of the 
Spirit too little, prominence. Nor are the fears and cautions 
of holy men, who love revivals, and have experimental knowl- 
edge on the subject, to be lightly regarded. But the danger 
of excess on the side of insisting upon ability and obligation 
*is not to be averted by denying the doctrine. This would be 
like eclipsing the sun to prevent the occasional over-action of 
his rays, or to annihilate the attraction of gravity to avoid the 
accidental evils of which it is the occasion. Nor is the excess 
of some on the side of free agency and ability to be equalized 

vol. in. 5 



50 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



by pressing with equal frequency and exclusiveness by others 
the doctrine of dependence. Both doctrines are true, and 
exist in perfect harmony ; and, by their united action, bring 
on the mind a strength of obligation, and weight of guilt, and 
a power of motive, wholly unparalleled by any other mode of 
exhibiting the Gospel which I have ever known. It has been 
said that they ought never to be preached together in the 
same sermon. It would be nearer the truth to say that they 
ought never to be separated. Should free agency and ability 
be so preached as to make and justify the impression that 
man is so able and so willing to obey the Gospel as that the 
special influence of the Spirit is not necessary to make him 
actually willing^ it would be a doctrine fundamentally erro- 
neous ; and were dependence so preached as to make and 
justify the impression that God requires of men the perform- 
ance of natural impossibilities, anS that all which a sinner 
can do is impenitently to use the means and wait for sovereign 
grace ; — this would be the subversion of accountability, and 
of all the principles of the moral government of God. It is 
when the capacity of man for obedience is asserted, and his 
own perversion of it is charged upon him, and God commands 
him to repent, and Christ, who died for him, exhorts, and his 
ambassadors plead, and the Spirit strives ; that the command- 
ment comes, and fear is awakened, and conscience armed, 
and sin revives, and the sinner dies. Experience evinces 
continually, in revivals, that there is no pressure upon the 
soul like that which is produced by the recognition of ability 
self-perverted, and the necessity of special divine influence * 
self-created, by inflexible obstinacy in sin. If there be any 
truth which ever brought this soul of mine into the dust before 
God, with a conscious guilt which was insupportable, and an 
anguish the recollection of which the ages of eternity cannot 



DEPENDENCE AND FREE AGENCY. 



51 



obliterate ; it was the distinct perception of immortal powers 
voluntarily withdrawn from the service of God, and the cer- 
tainty of a profitless and miserable eternity, if in the day of 
his power he did not make me willing to obey him. Day 
after day, and month after month, amid darkness visible and 
sickness of heart from hope deferred, this was the iron that 
entered my soul, and drew fast upon me the bands of death, 
— that God had made me capable of his perfect, blessed, 
immortal service, and I had turned away from it to beggarly 
elements ; that by the blood of expiation he had opened to me 
a door of return, while my own obstinacy and God's justice 
threatened me with an eternity of everlasting uselessness, and 
guilt, and misery. And it was here, if anywhere, that God, 
by his truth, broke my hard heart and bowed my stubborn 
will. 

And I must say, that while such has been my own expe- 
rience of the two doctrines upon my own soul, such, also, 
during my whole ministry, has been my observation of their 
effects on the souls of others. They have constituted, under 
God, the power of my ministry, the burning focus and the 
breaking hammer ; and so vital are the two principles, and so 
interwoven and diffused in all those discourses of mine which 
God has made most effectual in the conviction and conversion 
of sinners, that I could not preach one of them in a revival, 
after these principles had been obliterated. No other obstruc- 
tion to the success of the Gospel is so great as the possession 
of the public mind by the belief of the natural and absolute 
inability of unconverted men. That belief has done more, I 
verily believe, to wrap in sackcloth the Sun of Righteousness, 
and perpetuate the shadow of death on those who might have 
been rejoicing in his light, than all errors beside. I cannot 
anticipate a greater calamity to the church than would follow 



52 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



its universal inculcation and adoption. And most blessed 
and glorious, I am confident, will be the result, when her 
ministry, everywhere, shall rightly understand and teach, 
and their hearers universally shall admit, that the full ability 
of every sinner to comply with the terms of salvation, and the 
voluntary and obstinate perversion of this ability, together 
constitute the ground of the indispensableness of converting 
grace. So preached Apostles and Reformers and other suc- 
cessful ambassadors for Christ; and so was their message 
received by the multitudes in whom it was made the power 
of God unto salvation. And so will ministers universally 
preach, and their message be received, when all kindreds, 
and people, and tongues, shall be subdued to the obedience of 
faith. 



SERMON II. 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 

" Every one that lovetli is born of God." — 1 John 4 : 7. 

The love here spoken of is holy love, which assimilates the 
subject to God. It is that love which is styled the fulfilling 
of the law, and which is the principle of evangelical obedience. 
It is religion ; for every one that loveth knoweth God. But 
to know God is life eternal — is religion. This love does not 
belong to man by nature. It is never a quality of his heart as 
a consequence of his birth, but is the result, in all cases, of a 
special divine interposition. " Which were born, not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God." 

It will be the object of this discourse to show that man is 
not religious by nature. By religion I mean supreme love 
to God. By man I mean the entire race. And by the 
proposition that man is not religious by nature, I mean that 
there is nothing in him which is religion, and nothing of 
which religion is the natural effect or consequence, without a 
special divine interposition. When natural objects produce 
certain effects uniformly, we suppose there is in them some 
cause for such results, which we call their nature; and if 
there be certain effects which they never produce, we say that 
it is not in their nature to produce them. 

When it is affirmed, therefore, of man, that he is not 

VOL. III. 5* 



54 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

religious by nature, we mean that there is nothing in his 
constitution of mind or body of which religion is the result 
without a special divine interposition, and that the first 
accountable character which he sustains is not a religious 
character. It will not be denied, that if religion exists at all 
in man it must exist in his heart, and must consist primarily 
in the state of his will and affections towards God,— must 
include a predominant benevolence for God, and complacency 
in his character, and delight in his law, and obedience to his 
Gospel, and resignation to his will. 

In view of these explanations, therefore, I observe, 

L That the consciousness of every man in view of 

THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL, IS EVI- 
DENCE TO HIMSELF THAT HE POSSESSES NO RELIGION. 

I appeal to the experience of ^every one in this assembly 
that has not been born again, whether religious affections 
have found a place in your heart, from your earliest recollec- 
tion. Do you believe that you are truly pious ? Can you 
lay your hand upon your heart, and look up to heaven and 
say, Thou knowest that I love thee more than all things 
beside ? Do you love his word, his worship, his people ? 
Do you maintain, with pleasure, secret prayer ? Are you 
meek under provocation, and self-denying in temptation, and 
resigned in affliction? This is religion. But is this the 
experience of any one in this assembly who has no reason to 
believe that he is born of God ? And if not, certainly you 
are not religious by nature. And if you present this outline 
of religious experience to your neighbor, you will find that he 
has nothing that answers to it. And if you extend the in- 
quiry through the world, you will not find one whose first 
development of character is that of religion. 

II. THE UNIFORM EXPERIENCE OF AWAKENED SINNERS 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



55 



corroborates the same doctrine. From the day of Pen- 
tecost to the present hour, multitudes have experienced deep 
anxiety for their souls, but universally the cause of it has been 
that they had no religion. They have perceived, always, that 
the law of God required of them a love which they did not 
feel, and Christian graces to which they were strangers. And 
nothing has been found more to aggravate their distress than 
the simple direction to love supremely the Lord their God, 
and Jesus Christ. Uniformly the reply has been. We cannot 
love ; we cannot repent ; we cannot believe. I am sensible 
that there are many who are not thus awakened ; but does 
their stupidity discredit the consciousness of those who are 
awakened in respect to their own character ? This conscious- 
ness, then, of all who are awakened, that they have no 
religion, is strong presumptive evidence that the same is the 
fact with respect to those who are not awakened. 

III. TO THIS MAY BE ADDED THE TESTIMONY OF THOSE 

WHO furnish evidence of piety. Their uniform testi- 
mony is that their religious experience is a state of the will 
and affections wholly unknown before. 

It is not to be denied that some persons profess religion 
who disclaim the existence of any great change in the state 
of their will and affections towards God, and claim that they 
have always, from their earliest years, loved God. But it 
must be remembered that the religion which they claim is 
not such religion as has been described. To this they make 
no pretension, but ridicule it as visionary, enthusiastic and 
fanatical. Doubtless men may have such religion as these 
persons profess, without a change of heart. But I insist that 
the outline of religious experience which has been given is the 
religion of the Bible ; and that all who are conscious of pos- 
sessing it do testify that it is a state of the affections entirely 



56 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

new ; and this testimony of the pious strengthens the pre- 
sumption that religion is never the first character of man, but 
always the result of a divine interposition. 

IV. The history of the world is utterly incon- 
sistent WITH THE SUPPOSITION OF NATIVE PIETY IN MAN. 

If a man is religious by nature, we should expect to wit- 
ness the effects of early and universal piety in the history of 
the world. A world whose inhabitants all begin their 
accountable course religiously, could not surely furnish the 
same materials for history as a world whose early character 
is that of alienation from God. But does the history of the 
world confirm the supposition that man is religious by nature ? 
Of those who, in adult age, afford credible evidence of piety, 
three-fourths at least continue to do so; and the reasons 
would be stronger in favor of perseverance, if religion were 
the first character of all men. But do three-fourths of the 
human race, or one-fourth, afford evidence of piety from child- 
hood upward ? Has it not been, till lately, a rare event to 
find it at all among children ? Among real Christians religion 
is a predominant principle of action. But does the history 
of the world show that religion has been the predominant 
principle of action in the human race ? What is the origin 
of governments, but necessity? Families cannot dwell in 
safety in this world without protection, and therefore associate 
in tribes ; and tribes, wearied with the action and reaction of 
violence, coalesce for safety, and form the more extended 
communities of nations. Until these great associations were 
formed, the world had no rest, and the arts of civilized life 
were scarcely known. But nations have displayed the same 
principles of ambition and violence towards each other which 
marked the conduct of individuals, and families, and tribes. 
The history of nations is the history of crime and blood, and 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 57 
• 

not of peace and good-will to men. If men were religious 
by nature, we might expect that the knowledge and worship 
of the true God would be in every age universal. Instead 
of this, two-thirds of the human family have been idolaters. 
Notwithstanding the invisible things of God are clearly seen 
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
head, — and notwithstanding all that God has done by revela- 
tion, and by miracle, and by his Spirit, — two-thirds of the 
human family have changed the glory of the incorruptible 
God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to four- 
footed beasts and creeping things. Why is this ? The evi- 
dence of His being is not obscure, and the divinity of idols is 
not supported by even specious evidence. The service of God 
is reasonable, pure, and benign ; while that of idols is obscene, 
expensive, and bloody. Could a race, of which every individ- 
ual commenced his accountable course under the influence 
of religion, have done thus ? 
V. It is the uniform testimony of the Bible, that 

MEN ARE NOT RELIGIOUS BY NATURE. 

This is strongly implied in the utter silence of the Scrip- 
tures in respect to the piety of man by nature. If the first 
character which man sustains is a religious character, the 
Scriptures could not have failed to recognize it. It would be 
a commanding fact, which would extend its implications 
through every page, and modify every doctrine. Surely the 
descriptions of a religious, and of an alienated world, could 
not be the same. But let one examine, one by one, all the 
passages which speak of the heart of man, and he will find 
there is not one which declares, or implies, that it is the sub- 
ject of religion by nature. Whence this silence ? It is one 
great object of the Bible to make man acquainted with his 
own heart ; and much is disclosed concerning its wickedness. 



58 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Why is nothing said of its excellence, if religion be one of its 
native attributes ? This silence, though only negative testi- 
mony, corroborates greatly the preceding evidence, that man 
is not religious by nature. 

VI. The Bible ascribes to the natural heart of 

MAN A CHARACTER UTTERLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE EX- 
ISTENCE OF religion. Before the flood, every imagination 
of man's heart is described as being evil only, continually ; 
and after that event, as evil still, from his youth. This last 
declaration is made also as a reason why God in all future 
ages will no more curse the ground for man's sake, — afford- 
ing testimony, not only that the heart of man was evil then 
from his youth, but that it would continue to be so through 
all ages future ; unreclaimed by judgments, however numer- 
ous or severe. Thirteen hundred years later the hearts of 
the sons of men are described as "full of evil." And 
later still as "deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked." The account which is given of the heart by our 
Saviour is as explicit and forcible as any of the preceding, — 
" Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, 
fornications, blasphemies." 

Upon this testimony of the Bible I remark, that the 
heart of man is never described as becoming thus wicked by 
any change from native goodness to evil, since the fall of 
Adam; but, when described as evangelically good, it is 
always done in terms which imply a change from evil to 
goodness. 

Whenever men conduct wickedly, they are regarded as 
illustrating their own natural character, — as obeying the 
dictates of their own hearts. But when they manifest reli- 
gious affections, these are described as the fruits of the Spirit ; 
and when they are given up to irreclaimable wickedness, they 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



59 



are given up to their own hearts' lust, — to their foolish* and 
darkened hearts, — to vile affections through the lust of their 
own hearts, after their hard and impenitent hearts, treasur- 
ing up wrath. How, then, stands the testimony of the Bible 
concerning the heart of man ? It is silent as to the existence 
in it of religion. That heart is described in terms which pre- 
clude its existence. That heart is never represented as 
becoming bad by the loss of religion, or as being good except 
as the effect of a divine interposition ; and when abandoned 
to itself, it is always represented as being desperately wicked. 
Will it be alleged that this testimony is ancient, and that the 
heart of man may have changed for the better ? To break 
the force of the testimony, it must not only be possible that 
a change may have taken place, but it must be proved that it 
actually has taken place. Can such proof be found in the 
Bible ? Is there a passage which asserts or implies that a 
universal change has taken place in the heart of man since 
the preceding descriptions of it were placed upon record ? 

Will it be alleged that Enoch, and Noah, and Moses, and 
Abraham, and others, are spoken of as righteous, without any 
mention that they had experienced a change of heart ? If 
it were so, it would not prove that no change had been ex- 
perienced. The omission, in the record, to recognize the 
change, does not prove that it never happened. But it is 
implied of all these that they did experience a change of 
character. Faith implies a change of character, and is the 
gift of God. But by faith Abel offered a more excellent 
sacrifice than Cam, and this was a faith that works by love. 
By faith, Enoch walked with God. By faith, Abraham 
offered his son. By faith, Moses refused to be called the 
son of Pharaoh's daughter. Will it be said that the preced- 
ing proof is contained in a few detached texts of Scripture ? 



60 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



These texts are the testimony of God. They relate to the 
subject in question, and are direct and explicit. They are 
not detached from the context, and made to speak a meaning 
which they would not be authorized to speak in their connec- 
tion. And as to their being detached in any other sense, 
what if they were all contained on one page, — would that 
increase their perspicuity ? Or what if they were multiplied 
an hundred-fold, — would that increase the evidence of divine 
testimony % How near together must the declarations of God 
be placed, and how often must they be repeated, to be enti- 
tled to credit ? And what is the character of those to whom 
the Lord speaketh once, yea, twice, and they regard it not? 

VII. The Scriptural account oe childhood and 

YOUTH IMPLIES THAT MANKIND ARE NOT RELIGIOUS BY 

nature. u The imagination of man's heart is evil from his 
youth." " Childhood and youth are vanity." " Foolish- 
ness is bound in the heart of a child." "The wicked are 
estranged from the womb." 

Could all this be said of childhood and youth, if the first 
accountable character they sustain were a religious character I 
Is every imagination of the pious, evil ? Is religion vanity, 
or folly, or estrangement from God? It must be remem- 
bered also that the preceding are not specific descriptions of 
some children and youth, but descriptions of the entire race 
of man in the early periods of life. 

VIII. The generic descriptions oe man, contained 
in the Bible, are such as preclude the supposition 
that he is religious by nature. 

The term man includes all men of all nations. One nation 
is not man. All nations but one, are not man. Every indi- 
vidual of the race is included ; and whatever is declared of 
the genus is declared concerning every individual. Is the 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



61 



lion ferocious ? It is the character of all his race. Is the 
asp venomous ? It is true of every asp. Is man born unto 
trouble as the sparks fly upward ? None, then, escape trouble. 
Does he die and waste away ? There is no discharge, then, 
in that war. 

When it is demanded, then, what is man, that he should be 
clean, or he that is born of a woman, that he should be right- 
eous, it is a positive declaration that man is not clean, is 
not righteous — as a natural consequence of his birth. He 
possesses strength, and intelligence, and memory, and will, 
and affections, and appetites and passions, as the result of 
the constitution with which he is born. But moral purity — 
righteousness — it is expressly declared, is not, like these, the 
consequence of natural birth. 

The world is another generic term by which the human 
race is characterized ; and always in a manner which excludes 
the supposition of religion as being the first or natural charac- 
ter of man. We know that we (Christians) are of God, — 
that is, are born of God, — and the whole world lieth in 
wickedness. "He (Christ) was in the world, and the world 
knew him not." "0, righteous Father, the world hath not 
known thse." "Know ye not that the friendship of the 
world is enmity with God? " "If the world hate you, ye 
know that it hated me before it hated you." " I have given 
them thy word, and the world hath hated them." "If ye 
(my disciples) were of the world, the world would love his 
own ; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen 
you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." In 
these passages the world is contrasted with the pious ; and 
both together, like the ancient terms J ew and Gentile, include 
all men. There is no middle class, which belongs neither to 
the pious nor to the world. But the world is described as 

vol. in. 6 



62 VIEWS OE THEOLOGY. 

ignorant of God ; as alienated from God ; as opposed to Jesus 
Christ, and his cause and people ; as lying in wickedness ; 
as dead in trespasses and sins. Is this the description of 
a race whose first accountable character is that of loyalty to 
God? 

The term flesh is also a generic term, descriptive of --man 
in his native state. " My Spirit shall not always strive with 
man, for that (or because) he also is flesh" His being an 
animal furnished no reason, surely, why the Spirit of God 
should not strive with him. It is his moral nature, therefore, 
which is called flesh ; and which is described in other places 
as alienated from God, and as lusting against the Spirit; 
furnishing an obvious reason why the Spirit might abandon 
man. In his discourse with Nicodemus, our Saviour speaks 
of the flesh as being that moral nature of man which is the 
consequence of his natural birth. "That which is born of 
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit." Our Saviour would not surely undertake to convince 
Nicodemus that the animal body is flesh. Flesh and spirit 
are therefore moral qualities contrasted : the one, forming the 
first character of man ; the other, the result of a special 
interposition of the divine Spirit. The one disqualifying, and' 
the other fitting, a man for the kingdom of heaven. The one, 
intending that moral nature of man which renders regenera- 
tion indispensable ; the other, that holy nature which is pro- 
duced by the Spirit of God, when he renews the heart. 

The flesh is in other places described as the comprehensive 
principle of moral evil in man ; as the Spirit is described as 
being the efficient cause of all good. The works of the flesh 
are adultery, fornication, idolatry, hatred, seditions, heresies, 
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like : 
but the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



63 



gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. The 
flesh comprehends the depravity which remains in the Chris- 
tian after he is renewed. "I know that in me, that is, in 
my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." All py goodness is 
the result of regeneration ; all my sin, the remains of my 
corrapt nature, called the flesh. ''The flesh lusteth against 
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and these are 
contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things 
that ye would." The flesh, then, being the first character of 
man, and the comprehensive principle of evil in him, is so 
described as to preclude the possibility of religion as the char- 
acteristic of his first moral nature. For the carnal or fleshly 
mind is "enmity against God." To be carnally minded is 
death ; and they that are in the flesh cannot please God ; and 
they that live after the flesh shall die. 
IX. All those terms which divide the race of man 

INTO TWO GREAT MORAL DIVISIONS, IMPLY THAT NOT A 
RELIGIOUS, BUT A DEPRAVED CHARACTER, IS FIRST SUS- 
TAINED. Such are the righteous and the wicked, the holy 
and the unholy, the godly and the ungodly, the just and the 
unjust. That these terms of contrast include all men is cer- 
tain. From the nature of free agency, and from the declara- 
tion of God, we know that neutrality cannot exist among 
accountable beings. Where men are qualified to obey, and 
love is required, neutrality would be disobedience. To regard 
God, as compared with the creature, with indifference, would 
be adding insult to rebellion. But such a state of mind is 
impossible. No man can serve two masters, nor be indif- 
ferent towards them. He will love or hate, obey or despise. 
All men, then, are holy or unholy, righteous or wicked. But 
which is the first character sustained by man? Not the 
holy, but the unholy. There is no intimation in the Bible 



64 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



that men become unholy by any change from good to bad ; 
but Christians are continually described as becoming holy by 
a change from bad to good. They are begotten again. They 
are born of God. They are created anew. They are raised 
from the dead. The old man is put off, and the new man is 
put on. By all this variety of language it is implied that 
the sinful nature of man is first, and that his holy nature is 
the result of a special divine interposition. 

X. The avowed object of the death of Christ de- 
cides THAT MANKIND ARE NOT RELIGIOUS BY NATURE. His 
death was rendered necessary by a character sustained by all 
men. And what was the character sustained, which awak- 
ened the compassion of God, and called from heaven his 
only-begotten Son to die for man ? It was that of alienation 
from God. Herein is the love of Christ commended, in that 
while we were yet enemies he died for us. He suffered, the 
just for the unjust. " He died for all but it was because 
they " were all dead." In accordance with these representa- 
tions, men are addressed by the Gospel as dead ; and are 
commanded to arise from the dead, — as blind; and are com- 
manded to see, — as wicked ; and are commanded to forsake 
their wicked way, and turn to God. They are addressed as 
impenitent ; and are called upon to repent — as in unbelief ; 
and are commanded to believe. Every condition of pardon 
proposed to men in the Gospel, implies that they do not by 
nature possess it. The apostles, in their great commission, 
were directed to address every creature as impenitent ; and 
Paul, in particular, was sent to the heathen, to open their 
eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the 
power of Satan to the living God. 

When men obey the Gospel, they are described as renewed, 
— as reconciled, — as sustaining new affections. Old things 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



65 



are passed away ; behold all things are become new. The 
entire Christian character is described in the Bible as the 
work of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 
faith, &c. But the Spirit operates only in the application of 
the redemption purchased by Christ, in carrying into effect 
the objects of his death. Before he renews the hearts of 
the men for whom Christ died, they are therefore enemies, 
unjust, and dead in sin. 

Those who reject the Gospel, and perish, are represented 
as sustaining their own original character ; as despising the 
riches of the goodness of God, and, after their hard and 
impenitent heart, treasuring up wrath; as refusing when 
the Saviour called, and disregarding when he stretched out 
his hand. In short, men are described as becoming wicked 
as a consequence of the fall of Adam, and religious as the 
consequence, and only as the consequence, of the interposition 
of Jesus Christ, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. 

XI. IT IS DECLARED IN DIRECT TERMS. EXPRESSLY AND 
UNEQUIVOCALLY, THAT MANKIND ARE NOT RELIGIOUS IN 
THEIR EIRST CHARACTER. 

" The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of 
men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek 
God." To know and to seek God, implies religion. This 
investigation, therefore, was instituted to decide the question 
whether there was an individual of the human race who was 
religious by nature. Not whether any had returned, of those 
who had gone astray, — for of such we read in the context, and 
throughout the Bible, — but to ascertain whether there were 
tiny of the race of man who had never turned away from 
God, but remained, like Abdiel, " faithful among the faith- 
less." The result of this omniscient scrutiny is, "They are 
all gone aside; they are all together become filthy; there is 

VOL. III. 6* 



66 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



none that doeth good; no, not one." This is the declaration 
of God concerning the children of men: the result of an 
omniscient investigation, made expressly to decide whether 
the effects of the fall were universal, or whether any religious 
affection remained. The apostle Paul quotes this declaration 
of the Most High to prove, and he says that it does prove, 
"both Jews and Gentiles " (terms which then included all 
men), " that they are all under sin." But to be under sin is 
to be under its dominion, and under condemnation; for he 
proves the fact, that all are under sin, to cut off the hope of 
justification by the deeds of the law, and to establish the doc- 
trine of justification by faith. But to be under the dominion 
of sin, and in an unjustified condition, is surely inconsistent 
with the existence of religion. To corroborate his argument, 
the apostle quotes the following passage from the Old Testa- 
ment, and he quotes it that every mouth may be stopped, 
and the whole world become guilty before God. " Their 
throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have 
used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips ; whose 
mouth is full of cursing and bitterness ; their feet are swift to 
shed blood ; destruction and misery are in their ways ; and 
the way of peace have they not known ; there is no fear of 
God before their eyes." Now, abate from this passage as 
much as is possible on the ground of metaphor, yet, as it is 
quoted in a regular argument to stop every mouth, and to 
prove the whole world guilty before God, it does most certainly 
exclude the supposition of piety in those who are thus charac- 
terized. An open sepulchre is not the place of life; the 
poison of asps is not an emblem of health ; and cursing and 
bitterness are not the fruits of the Spirit; nor are destruction 
and misery found in the ways of wisdom ; nor can it ever be 
said of the truly pious that they have no fear of God before 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAX. 



67 



their eyes. Language is of no use, and inspiration affords 
no evidence of truth, if these terms, applied to stop every 
mouth and prove the whole world guilty before God, do not 
prove that man is not religious by nature. 

XII. There is also in the Scriptures much infer- 
ential evidence on this subject. If man, in his first 
character, is religions, we should expect that the fact would 
be implied in all the doctrines of the Bible ; and if he is not 
religious, that such a fact would also be implied. The 
difference is so great that the same doctrines cannot be alike 
true on either supposition. But to which of the two sup- 
positions are the doctrines of the Bible accommodated ? If 
man is not religious by nature, we should expect to find 
the necessity of a great moral change inculcated in the Bible. 
And do we not find it? £i Except a man be born again he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." We should expect to find 
Christians described as those who had experienced this great 
change : and thus they are described as born of God, created 
anew, and passed from death unto life. As there can be no 
medium between religion and irreligion, we should expect the 
change would be sudden. And do not all the terms which 
describe it imply that it is sudden ? It is a creation. Is 
there a point of time in the process of creation in which a 
substance is neither in being nor out of being ? It is a res- 
urrection from the dead. Is there a moment in which the 
body is neither dead nor alive ? If all men in the beginning 
withhold from God the homage of the heart, we should 
expect they would continue to do so, until reclaimed by a 
divine interposition. And thus we read of those who received 
Christ, that they were born, not of blood, nor of the will of 
the flesh, nor of man, but of God. 

If religion in man is the result of a divine interposition, we 



68 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



should expect to find it described as an act of grace which 
God might grant, or withhold, according to his good pleasure. 
And do we not read that he hath mercy on whom he will 
have mercy ? If men are without religion, we should expect 
that they would be required to give the heart to God, and 
repent, and believe immediately, and that those who perished 
would be represented as self-destroyers. And is it not so ? 
" Repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." " To-day, if 
ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." And do not 
all who perish under the light of the Gospel perish by neg- 
lecting the great salvation? " Turn ye, for why will ye 
die?" u I have called, and ye have refused." " This is 
the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and 
men loved darkness rather than light." 

If men are not religious in theis first character, we should 
expect to find all their actions charged with sinful defect. 
And in accordance with this expectation we read, " The sac- 
rifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." " The 
ploughing of the wicked is sin." u So then they that are 
in the flesh cannot please God." And " without faith it is 
impossible to please him." 

In conclusion of the argument, I have only to add, that if 
the first accountable character of man is a religious charac- 
ter, this entire body of evidence must be reversed. All men 
must be conscious of supreme love to God in early life ; and 
conviction of sin and a moral renovation must be confined to 
those who have lost their religion ; while the great body of 
Christians must be supposed to be such without the con- 
sciousness of any change. At the same time, the history of 
the world must be held to be a history of the fruits of 
piety, — idolatry itself being only an aberration of religious 
affection in children emulous to please their heavenly 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



69 



Father ! It should, moreover, be found written upon the 
unerring page, " Every imagination of man's heart is good 
from his youth. The children of men have not gone out of 
the way. There is none who doth not understand and seek 
God, and do good ; no, not one. The heart of the sons of 
men is full of goodness, out of which proceed holy thoughts, 
benevolent deeds, chastity, truth, and reverence for God. 
What, therefore, is man, that he should be wicked ? or he 
that is born of a woman, that he should not be religious ? 
How lovely and pure is man, who drinketh in righteous- 
ness like water ! This is the approbation, that darkness 
is come into the world, and men have loved light more than 
darkness, because their deeds are good. The whole world 
lieth in righteousness. He [Christ] was in the world, and 
the world knew him. 0, righteous Father, the world hath 
known thee. The friendship of the world is friendship 
with God. If the world hath loved you, ye know that it 
loved me before it loved you. Be ye, therefore, conformed 
to the world, and be ye not transformed by any renewing 
of your mind. My Spirit shall always strive with man, 
because he is spirit. For that which is born of the flesh is 
spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you ye must not be 
born again. For the works of the flesh are love, joy, peace, 
faith ; and the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, 
faith. In me, — that is, in my flesh, — dwelleth every good 
thing. Jesus Christ came to seek and to save those who 
were not lost, and he died not for his enemies — not the 
just for the unjust." The Gospel demands of men no new 
character ; and all the doctrines of the Bible imply the 
early and universal piety of the human family. 

And now who is prepared thus to reverse the whole testi- 
mony of experience, of history, and of the holy Scriptures ? 



70 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



In view of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary, will 
any man pretend to believe that mankind are religious by 
nature ? 

If you had as much evidence that your water was poi- 
soned as you have that the heart of man by nature is not 
holy, would you drink it ? Were the proof as clear that an 
assassin would meet you on turning a corner, would you go 
thither ? Were it proved by as various and conclusive evi- 
dence that the fire was kindling on your dwelling, would 
you compose yourself to sleep? Will you, then, in opposi- 
tion to such evidence, still endeavor to persuade yourself of 
the native goodness of the human heart % If it were merely 
the body whose life was threatened by the deception, I might 
still cry earnestly to you to beware ; but it is your soul, 
and your future and eternal well-being, which you put in 
jeopardy by setting at naught such evidence. Without reli- 
gion you cannot be admitted to heaven, and would not enjoy 
heaven if you were admitted. Without religion you can 
neither keep the law nor obey the Gospel, and cannot escape 
the condemnation which rests upon transgression and unbe- 
lief. Will you, then, shut your eyes against light, and stop 
your ears against admonition? It is but for a moment, 
compared with eternity, that you can thus deceive yourself, 
and cry Peace. The overwhelming consciousness must soon 
press upon your amazed heart, that you are without holiness 
and cannot see the Lord, and that the harvest is past, the 
summer ended, and you not saved. There is no hope in 
your case while you think your heart is good, and feel no 
need of a divine renovation. They that are whole need not 
the physician, but they that are sick; and Jesus Christ 
came to call, not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. 
While the delusion prevails that you are rich, and stand in 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



71 



need of nothing, you will reject the counsel of Christ, to 
apply to him for eye-salve that you may see, and for white 
raiment to cover the shame of your nakedness. You will 
do nothing to save your own soul, and God will do nothing 
to save it, while, under the concentrated light of evidence, 
you remain wilfully ignorant of your malady, and wilfully 
negligent of your only remedy. Admit, then, the painful, 
alarming fact, that you have no religion, and without delay 
commence the inquiry what you must do to be saved, and 
thus escape the coming wrath, and lay hold on eternal life. 
All men who are now in heaven were once, like you, with- 
out God, and without Christ, and without hope ; and all who 
are now on earth, strangers and pilgrims seeking a better 
country, were once, like you, without religion. But He 
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined 
in their hearts, and the same blessed Spirit is able and will- 
ing to enlighten you ; but you must confess, and not cover 
your sin ; you must come to the light, and not shun it ; you 
must be convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of a judg- 
ment to come ; you must be born again, or you cannot see 
the kingdom of God. 



SERMON III. 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 
66 Every one that lovetk is born of God." — 1 John 4 : 7. 

The preceding discourse furnishes a Scriptural account of 
human depravity. It is comprehended in the fact that men 
have naturally no religion. If this has not been proved, we 
must abandon our confidence in the power of language to 
express ideas, and of evidence to .prove matters of fact. 

All which is admirable in intellect, or monitory in con- 
science, or comprehensive in knowledge, or refined in taste, 
or delicate in sensibility, or tender in natural affection, may 
be found in man, as the result of constitution, or the effect 
of intellectual and moral culture ; but religion is not found, 
except as a result of the divine interposition. The temple is 
beautiful, but it is a temple in ruin. This depravity of man, 
implied in his destitution of religion, may be described 
briefly in the following particulars : 

I. This depravity oe man, comprehended in his des- 
titution of religion, is voluntary. 

A depraved nature is by many understood to mean a con- 
stitutional nature, sinful prior to choice, and producing sin- 
ful choice by an unavoidable necessity, as fountains of 
water pour forth their bitter streams, or trees produce their 
bitter fruit. 

The mistake lies in a virtual implication that the nature 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



73 



of matter and mind are the same ; whereas they are entirely 
different. The nature of matter excludes powers of percep- 
tion, understanding and choice. But the nature of account- 
able mind includes them all. 

Neither a holy or a depraved nature in the strict sense 
is possible j without acts of understanding, conscience and 
choice. To say of an accountable creature that he has a 
depraved nature, is to say that, rendered capable by his 
Maker of obedience, he disobeys from the commencement of 
his accountable agency. 

To us it does not belong to say when accountability and 
actual sin commence, and to what extent they exist in the 
early stages of life ; this is the prerogative of the omniscient 
God. Doubtless there is a time when every man does become 
personally accountable, and the law of God obligatory. And 
what we have proved is, that, whenever the time arrives that 
it becomes the duty of man to love God more than the crea- 
ture, he does in fact love the creature more than God,— does 
freely and wickedly set his affections on things below, and 
refuse to set them upon things above. For this universal 
concurrence of men in preferring the creature to the Creator, 
there is doubtless some cause or reason ; but it cannot be a 
cause of which disobedience is an involuntary and unavoid- 
able result. Ability to obey is indispensable to moral obli- 
gation ; and the moment any cause should render love to 
God impossible, that moment the obligation to love would 
cease, and man would no more have a depraved nature than 
any other animal. A depraved nature in the strict sense 
can no more exist without voluntary agency and accounta- 
bility, than a material nature could exist without solidity 
and extension. 

Whatever effect, therefore, the fall of man may have had 

VOL. III. 7 



74 



VIEWS 0E THEOLOGY. 



on his race, it has not had the effect to render it impossible 
for man to love God. And whatever may be the early con- 
stitution of man, there is nothing in it and nothing with- 
held from it, which renders disobedience unavoidable and 
obedience impossible. 

The first actual sin in every man might have been and 
ought to have been avoided, as really as any subsequent sin. 
At the time, whenever it is, when it first becomes the duty of 
a man to be religious and he refuses ; it is in the possession 
of such faculties and such knowledge as render religion a rea- 
sonable service, and him inexcusable and justly punishable. 
The supreme love of the world is a matter of choice, formed 
under such circumstances as that the man might have chosen 
otherwise, and ought to have chosen otherwise, and is there- 
fore exposed to punishment for his voluntary and inexcusa- 
ble disobedience. If, therefore, man has a depraved nature, 
in the strict sense, it is a voluntary and accountable nature, 
which is depraved, as exercised in disobedience to the law of 
God.* 

This is in accordance with the Bible. " They are all gone 
aside." "They are all gone out of the way. 7 ' Each man 
has been voluntary and active in his transgressions. " There 
is none that doeth good;, no, not one." " Every imagina- 
tion of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually." 
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind." 
" The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." 

* I do not deny the existence of a nature so affected by the fall, even 
before action, that it uniformly leads to sin, and is therefore in a proper, 
though loose and popular sense, called depraved and sinful, — that is, lead- 
ing to sin. This point is fully explained in the trial that follows. 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



75 



II. The depravity of man, implied in his destitu- 
tion OF RELIGION, IS POSITIVE DEPRAVITY. 

Multitudes are willing to admit the fact that they have no 
religion, who are by no means convinced that they are in a 
state of positive opposition to God. They are not conscious 
of it. They have a reverence for God, and for his mercies 
some gratitude ; and desire, they think, to be religious, and 
do many things with the hope of becoming such. 

But the transgression of the law is voluntary and positive 
transgression. Not to love when God commands it, is diso- 
bedience, and not to repent and believe when these duties arc 
commanded, is rebellion against God. 

But, can a subject disobey the fundamental laws of the 
government under which he lives, and not be opposed to the 
government, and positively wicked ? And can a man disobey 
in his heart the law of God and His Gospel, and not be posi- 
tively opposed to his Maker and Redeemer? The divine 
requirement is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and 
the man who has no religion refuses. The prohibition is. 
" Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" but the man 
without religion, in defiance of this prohibition, do£s love the 
creature more than God. Is not this positive disobedience 1 
Were a course of action persisted in which God forbids, that 
would be counted positive disobedience. But the obedience 
of the heart is of all others the most appreciated, and the dis- 
obedience of the heart of all others regarded as most evil. 
Some have admitted that they do not love God supremely, 
but have insisted that neither are they opposed to God. But 
this neutral state, if it were possible, would be adding insult 
to disobedience ; for the command is, Thou shalt not be indif- 
ferent — "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart." Now, what greater insult can be offered to the glo- 



76- 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



rious God than to refuse him our preference, and hang in 
equilibrium between the attractions of his infinite glory and 
the influence of a perishing world 1 But neutrality between 
such objects as God and the world is impossible. It is the 
nature of mind to choose, if not prevented by fo^ce ; as much 
as it is of matter to be quiescent, if not moved by external 
powers. To prefer the world, or God, is the unavoidable 
result of free agency. Not to choose at all, is the attribute 
of a stock or a stone, but not of a rational, accountable being. 
Nor is there any practical indication of neutrality. For 
whatever reverence a man may feel for God, and whatever 
external respect he may pay to him, his own consciousness 
will decide, and his course of conduct will confirm the deci- 
sion, that his affections are set on things below, and his 
sources of enjoyment are found, not in God, but in the things 
of time. Here, then, the great law of the kingdom of God is 
violated by all who are without religion. But can the funda- 
mental laws of a government be violated, without opposition 
to that government? 

This view which we have given of the mind, as excluding 
neutrality, is confirmed by the Bible. u No man can serve 
two masters. ' J " He that is not with me is against me. 75 
" The friendship of the world is enmity with God." Hence, 
according to the Bible, all men are positively holy or unholy, 
just or unjust, righteous or wicked, godly or ungodly, peni- 
tent or impenitent, believers or unbelievers, in a state of par- 
don or of condemnation. Therefore the depravity of the man 
who is destitute of religion is positive depravity. 

III. The depravity of man, which is implied in his 
destitution of religion, is great. Many suppose that, 
although they are not religious, they are not great sinners. 
Provided they are amiable and conscientious in their moral 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAX. 



TT 



deportment, and useful in their lives, they cannot conceive 
that God should have much reason to be displeased with 
them. If they had been guilty of great actual crimes, they 
would be ready to admit that they were great sinners. But 
so long as the chief that can be said against them is that they 
are not Christians : this, if it be a crime at all. is so common, 
and results (as they think) so much from unavoidable neces- 
sity, as almost to take away guilt, and leave a fair balance of 
good deeds and virtues to recommend them to God. 

Far different from this is Heaven's estimation of the guilt 
of being without religion. According to the Bible, whenever 
it becomes the duty of man to love God, it is a duty of the 
highest obligation, the violation of which constitutes crimi- 
nality of the highest order. The Being who demands love is 
worthy : the beings of whom he demands it are able to love ; 
and the affections of his creatures belong to Him. He claims 
them as his right, and declares that he is robbed when they 
are withheld. The highest good of his subjects, for time and 
eternity, is found in giving their hearts to Himself : and ruin 
is the consequence of refusal. The obligation to love accord- 
ing to the law is, therefore, superlatively great. It is also con- 
stant ; so that the sinfulness of man is great in its nature and 
great in its amount, for it is the violation, constantly, of the 
highest possible obligation. And, when this is done by those 
who are favored with the Gospel, their sin is immensely 
aggravated by the consideration of all that God has done to 
save them from death. They 'have perverted the means of 
grace, the mercies of his Providence, and the judgments of 
his rod : they have despised the riches of his goodness, and 
the fierceness of his wrath : they have trodden under foot the 
blood of his Son, and done despite to the Spirit of his grace. 
And is all this criminality of a low degree and small amount, 

VOL. III. 7* 



78 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



and so neutralized by human inability as to be more than bal- 
anced by amiable dispositions and good actions ? As God 
views the subject, those who do not love him are sinful to an 
astonishing degree. u Hear, heavens, and give ear. 
earth ! for the Lord hath spoken, — I have nourished and 
brought up children, and they have rebelled against me!" 

IV. The depravity of man, implied in his destitu- 
tion of religion, is entire. Most men who admit that 
they have no religion, resist the conclusion that they are 
therefore entirely depraved. But, to decide the point, we 
have only to ascertain in what purity of heart, or holiness, 
consists, and whether a man who has no religion possesses it. 
Purity of heart, or holiness, consists in conformity of heart 
to the law of God, and includes, of course, supreme love 
to God. He, therefore, who has not supreme love to God, 
possesses no such affections of heari towards God as the law 
requires ; and, so far as his heart is concerned, his depravity 
is entire. And as to actions, however correct in form they 
may be, they cannot, without holiness of heart, be regarded 
as obedience. The entireness of human depravity, therefore, 
consists in the constant voluntary refusal of man to love the 
Lord his God with supreme complacency and good-will. It 
is in him all evil and no good. 

V. The view we have taken of the character of 

MAN, AS DESTITUTE OF RELIGION, ILLUSTRATES BOTH THE 
NATURE AND THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. The lan- 
guage of the Bible is clear and forcible on this subject ; but 
it is claimed by many, that, as there is no such moral defect 
in man as lays a foundation for the necessity of a universal 
moral change, those passages which might seem to teach it 
must be restricted, and understood to teach only the necessity 
of conversion from Paganism or Judaism to Christianity, or a 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



79 



reformation of life. But the course of evidence in these dis- 
courses has disclosed a universal and appalling moral defect 
in man, which renders just such a change necessary as the 
fatnffiuage of the Bible indicates, according to its most direct 
and obvious import. To be without religion is to be dead in 
sin ; and to be so renewed by the Spirit as to love God 
supremely, is to be liaised from the dead, and born of 
God. This is the change without which no man can see 
the kingdom of God. 

This change, so indispensable, must also be a perceptible 
change. The attention to the means of grace, and growing 
seriousness and solicitude which precede it, are progressive, 
as is the subsequent increase of holiness and evidence of the 
change. But the change itself from selfishness to holiness 
— from supreme love of the world to supreme love of God — 
is not a progressive, but an instantaneous change. This 
accords with the representations of the Bible. It is a new 
creation, a resurrection from the dead, &c. I do not say that 
every Christian perceives, at the time, the moment of transi- 
tion ; or that, perceiving that a change of some kind has 
taken place, he perceives at once the evidence that it is a 
saving change. Not unfrequently days and weeks may pass 
away before he will dare to hope ; and sometimes the truly 
pious, from a misapprehension of their evidence, may for 
years be afflicted with doubts and fears concerning their state. 
But that the change is real, and great, and instantaneous, 
when a sinner, who has loved the world supremely, first sets 
his affections on things above, is self-evident. It would be 
ridiculous, in the relations of life, to talk of unperceived affec- 
tion for a father or mother, husband or wife ; and equally 
absurd is the supposition of loving God more than the world, 
without the occurrence of any perceptible change. 



80 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



There is, I am aware, a general feeling that men are not 
quite prepared to die without becoming better. But this 
emendation, it is thought by many, is to be attained gradu- 
ally, by moral culture, and imperceptibly, as the grass grows 
by rain and sunshine. Any great solicitude, or deep convic- 
tion of sin, or sudden peace and joy, it is supposed, are not 
to be expected, but deprecated as delusion. And some pro- 
fessed Christians, and even ministers, warn their friends not 
to be alarmed, and not to expect any sudden and happy 
change in their views and affections. But if there be with 
every man a time when he is not religious, there must be a 
time when he becomes religious. Even were religion the 
result of natural principles duly cultivated, there must be a 
time when cultivation has produced its results. If it were 
produced by the cultivation of some low degrees of goodness 
in man, still there must be a time when it reaches to the 
degree of goodness which constitutes religion. Or if, as the 
Scriptures teach, there is no religion in the heart of man by 
nature, then there must be a moment of time when its exist- 
ence in the heart begins. For that which once had no exist- 
ence, and comes into being, must have a beginning. There 
is no medium between existence and non-existence, in matter, 
mind or morals; no moment in which a thing is neither 
created nor uncreated, neither in existence nor out of exist- 
ence. 

It is absurd to speak of love as in a process of gradual form- 
ation ; for what is half-formed love, repentance, faith, or any 
other trait of Christian character 1 How long must culture 
operate, to produce the simple and indivisible emotion of love 
to God ? And if the obedience of love must be gradual, and 
cannot be instantaneous, how is it that the requirements of 
Heaven should so disregard this constitution of mind, as to 



THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN. 



81 



command man immediately to love and repent, and warn him 
of growing hardness of heart as the consequence of delay ? 
As all men, then, are destitute of religion by nature, its com- 
mencement in the soul is at all times sudden. There is a 
moment when he who loved the world more than God begins 
to love God more than the world. He may not in a moment 
see it, but God sees it. 

You have now before you the evidence that men are not 
religious by nature ; and that this destitution implies the 
universal and entire depravity of man, and the necessity of a 
great and sudden change in the affections, by the special influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit. This is not a matter of abstract 
speculation, of no practical utility. Our being and accounta- 
bility are eternal ; and the law of God, which is the rule of 
obligation, is eternal. Heaven is a religious world, and the 
present is our state, and our only state, of probation and 
preparation for heaven. Here, in this morning of our being, 
the elements are " formed of an immutable character in the 
eternal state ; and if that which is first formed is one that 
unfits us for heaven, and fits us for destruction, can we too 
soon or too clearly perceive it, or*too deeply feel it, or too ear- 
nestly strive to be conformed in our affections to the require- 
ments of the Gospel, to the conditions of pardon, and to the 
exigencies of the heavenly state ? What, then, is the im- 
provement which you will make of these discourses, whose 
hearts tell you that you have no religion ? Will you say that 
these are hard sayings, and that you do not like such doc- 
trine? But is it therefore untrue, because it is painful ? 
And will you, dare you, in the presence of such evidence, 
reject it, in favor of the dictates of mere inclination ? Will 
you apply for comfort to such as endeavor to explain away 
'his evidence, and speak to you smooth things, and prophesy 



82 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



deceits ? Beware ! others before you have done this, and 
"God sent them strong delusions, that they might believe a 
lie, because" they had no pleasure in the truth, but had 
pleasure in unrighteousness." You may persuade yourself, 
or be persuaded, that a change of heart is not necessary to 
prepare you for death and heaven ; and yet, 

66 This fearful truth will still remain, 
The sinner must be born again, 
Or drink the wrath of God." 

Do you then, at length, inquire what you must do to be 
saved? The answer is plain, — Repent, and you shall be 
forgiven ; believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be 
saved. Neglect, then, the subject no longer. Resolve that 
from this time you will make the salvation of your soul your 
first and great concern. Break off your alliance with vain 
persons and diverting amusements ; read your Bible daily 
and earnestly, alone ; and lift up your cry to God, in earnest 
supplication for mercy. Plead guilty, and cry for pardon 
through a Redeemer's blood ! 



DR. BEECHER'S TRIAL FOR HERESY: 



BEFORE THE PRESBYTERY OF CINCINNATI, JUNE, 1835. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The statement of my trial for heresy, at the West, in 1835, which fol- 
lows, is substantially as reported for the New York Observer, at the time, 
from the sittings of the Presbytery of Cincinnati ; with the incorporation of 
my defence, in the maturer form which it took in my " Views of Theology," 
subsequently published, at the request of the Synod. 

L. B. 



The Presbytery of Cincinnati, to which Dr. Beecher 
belonged, held an adjourned meeting in that city, on Tuesday, 
the 9th of June, 1835. The Court consisted of the following 
members, namely : 

Ministers. — J. L. Wilson, D.D., Lyman Beecher, D.D.,* 
Andrew S. Morison, Daniel Hayden, Francis Monfort, 
Thomas J. Biggs, t Dudwell G. Gaines, Sayres Gasley, Ben- 
jamin Graves (clerk), Artemas Bullarcl, John Burt, F. Y. 
Vail, Thomas Brainerd, A. T. Rankin, Calvin E. StoweJ 
(moderator), Augustus Pomroy, George Beecher, Adrien 
Aton, E. Slack. 

* Professor of Theology, ) 

t Professor of Ecclesiastical History, \ in Lane Seminary. 

t Professor of Languages, \ 



84 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Ruling Elders. — William Skillinger, J. G. Burnet, 
Adam S. Walker, Simon Hageman, Peter H. Kemper, 
Andrew Harvey, William Cnmback, Robert Porter, John 
Archard, Henry Hageman, A. B. Andrews, Israel Brown. 
Bryce R. Blair, Wm. Carey, J. C. Tunis, J. Lyon, J. D. 
Low, T. Mitchell, W. Owen, A, P. Bradley, S. Woodbury. 

The Presbytery was constituted with prayer ; when a ser- 
mon was delivered by the Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, from Phil. 3 : 
16, — " Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by 
the same rule, let us mind the same thing." 

The Rev. Dr. Wilson had, at a previous meeting of Pres- 
bytery, brought forward certain charges against the Rev. Dr. 
Beecher, and the present meeting had been appointed to con- 
sider and try the accusations ; citations had been issued, and 
the requisite steps taken to prepare the case for trial. 

The charges were then read, as follows : 

CHARGES OF WILSON V. BEECHER. 

November 11, 1834. 
To the Moderator and Members of the Presbytery of Cincinnati : 

Dear Brethren : It is known to the Trustees of Lane Seminary, and 
to some of the members of Presbytery, that, after the appointment of the 
Kev. Lyman Beecher, D.D., to the Professorship which he now holds, in 
that Institution, I more than once expressed an opinion that he would not 
accept of the appointment, because, as I thought, he could not, consistently 
with his views in theology, adopt the standards of the Presbyterian 
Church. 

My opinion of Dr. Beecher's theology was then founded on my recollec- 
tion of a conversation held with him in 1817, and his sermon published in 
1827, entitled "The Native Character of Man." When I heard that Dr. 
Beecher had entered the Presbyterian Church, without adopting her stand- 
ards, I was surprised, grieved and alarmed. When he was received by the 
Presbytery of Cincinnati from the 3d Presbytery of New York, I was in the 
moderator's chair, and was denied the privilege of protesting against his 
admission, because, it was said, I had no right to protest in a case in 
which I had no right to vote. Afterwards it was seen, by publications in 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



85 



different periodicals, that the soundness of Dr. Beecher's theology was 
called in question, and this Presbytery was called upon to take up charges 
against him on the ground of general rumor. But the common fame was 
denied to exist, and the call was unheeded. Subsequently the sermon of 
Dr. Beecher on " Dependence and Free Agency M was circulated, and highly 
commended. This Presbytery was then called upon to appoint a committee 
to examine some of the Doctor's sermons, and report whether they con- 
tained doctrines at variance with the standards of our Church. This call 
was disregarded also. Complaint was made to the Synod of Cincinnati, 
and they said the Presbytery could be compelled to take up charges 
only by a responsible prosecutor. Being more and more grieved and 
alarmed, I carried the matter up by appeal to the last General Assembly. 
This appeal was cast out by the judicial committee, because, it was said, 
that I was not one of the original parties. Had I called my appeal a com- 
plaint, it would have been tried. 

Two facts have made this subject recently flagrant : 

% The public commendation of Dr. Beecher's theology by Perfection- 
ists. 

2. Some of the Perfectionists have been inmates of Lane Seminary. 

In view of these things, and believing that Dr. Beecher has contributed 
greatly to the propagation of dangerous doctrines, I feel it my duty to bring 
charges against him before this Presbytery. 

L I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating doctrines contrary to the Word 
of God, and the standards of the Presbyterian Church, on the subject of 
the depraved nature of man. 

Specifications. — The Scriptures and our standards teach, on the sub- 
ject of a depraved nature ; 

1. That a corrupted nature is conveyed to all the posterity of Adam, 
descending from him by ordinary generation. 

2. That from original corruption all actual transgressions proceed. 

3. That all the natural descendants of Adam are conceived and born in 
sin. 

4. That original sin binds the descendants of Adam over to the wrath of 
God. 

5. That the fall of Adam brought upon mankind the loss of communion 
with God, so as we are by nature children of wrath, and bound slaves to 
Satan. Conf. F., ch. vi., sees. 3, 4, 6. Larg. Cat., Ans. to Q. 26, 27. Vide 
Scrip, proofs, and Short. Cat., A. to Q. 18. 

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches ; 
VOL. in. 8 



86 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



1. That the depravity of man is voluntary. 

2. That neither a depraved or holy nature are possible, without under- 
standing, conscience and choice. 

3. That a depraved nature cannot exist without a voluntary agency. 

4. That, whatever may be the early constitution of man, there is nothing 
in it, and nothing withheld from it, which renders disobedience unavoid- 
able. 

5. That the first sin in every man is free, and might have been and 
ought to have been avoided. 

6. That if man is depraved by nature, it is a voluntary nature that is 
depraved. 

7. That this is according to the Bible. " They go astray as soon as they 
be born," — that is, in early life ; how early, so as to deserve punishment 
for actual sin, God only knows. — Vide Sermon on Native Character of 
man, pp. 72, 73, 74. 

II. I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating doctrines contrary to the 
Word of God, and the standards of the Presbyterian Church, on the sub- 
jects of Total Depravity and the work of the Holy Spirit in effectual call- 
ing. 

Specifications. — The Scriptures and our standards teach, on the subject 
of total depravity ; 

1. That, by the sin of our first parents, all their natural descendants are 
dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties of soul and body. 

2. That, by this original corruption, they are utterly disabled, and made 
opposite to all good. 

3. That a natural man, being dead in sin, is not able, by his own 
strength, to convert himself, or prepare himself thereto. 

4. That no man is able, either of himself or by any grace received in this 
life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God. — Conf., ch. vi., sees. 2, 4. 
Ch. ix., sec. 3. Larg. Cat., A. to Q. 25, 149, 190. Short. Cat., A. to Q. 
101, 103, and Scripture proofe. 

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches ; 

1. That man is rendered capable by his Maker of obedience. 

2. That ability to obey is indispensable to moral obligation. 

3. That where there is a want of ability to love God, obligation to love 
ceases, whatever may be the cause. 

4. That the sinner is able to do what God commands, and what, being 
done, would save the soul. 

5. That to be able and unwilling lo obey God is the only possible way in 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



87 



which a free agent can become deserving of condemnation and punish- 
ment. 

6 . That there is no position which unites more universally and entirely 
the suffrages of the whole human race than the necessity of a capacity for 
obedience to the existence of obligation and desert of punishment. 

7. That no obligation can be created, without a capacity commensurate 
with the demand. 

8. That ability commensurate with requirement is the equitable founda- 
tion of the moral government of God. 

9. That this has been the received doctrine of the Orthodox Church in all 
ages. 

Vide Sermons on Native Character, and Dependence and Free Agency, 
pp. 73, 22, 23, 32, 36. 

On the subject of total depravity, effectual calling, and the work of the 
Holy Spirit in the production of saving faith, the Scriptures and our stand- 
ards teach ; 

1. That fallen man is utterly disabled, and wholly defiled in all the 
faculties and parts of soul and body, and made opposite to all good, and 
wholly inclined to all evil, by original corruption. 

2. That from this original corruption do proceed all actual transgressions. 

3. That effectual calling is of God's free and special grace, and a work of 
God's Spirit ; that men are altogether passive therein, until, being quick- 
ened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, they are thereby enabled to answer 
this call. 

4. That, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, they are 
sanctified and enabled to believe. 

5. That justifying faith is wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit 
and Word of God, whereby he is convinced of his disability to recover 
himself. 

Conf., ch. vi., sees. 1, 2, 4. Ch. x., sec. 2. Ch. xiii., sec. 1. Ch. xiv., 
sec. 1. Larg. Cat., Ans. to Quest. 72, and Scripture proofs. 
In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches ; 

1. That man in his present state is able and only unwilling to do what 
God commands, and which, being done, would save the soul. 

2. That the more clearly the light of conviction shines, the more distinct 
is a sinner's perception that he is not destitute of capacity, — that is, of 
ability to obey God.* 

* Dr. Beecher uses the terms " natural capacity " and " natural ability " in the same 
6ense. — (Dr. Wilson's note.) 



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VIEWS , OF THEOLOGY. 



3. That when the Holy Spirit comes to search out what is amiss, and put 
in order that which is out of the way, he finds no impediment to obedience 
to be removed, but only a perverted will ; and that all which he accomplishes 
in the day of his power is to make the sinner willing to submit to God. 

4. That good men have supposed that they augment the evil of sin, and 
the justice, mercy and power of God, in exact .proportion as they throw down 
the sinner into a condition of absolute impotency ; that he [Dr. Beecher] 
cannot perceive the wisdom of their views ; that a subject of God's govern- 
ment who* can but will not obey might appear to himself much more 
guilty than one whose capacity of obedience had been wholly annihilated 
by the sin of Adam. — Sermons on Dependence and Free Agency, pp. 22, 
31, 43. 

III. I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating a doctrine of Perfection 
contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian church. 
Specifications. — Our standards teach ; 

1. That no man is able, neither of himself nor by grace received, to keep 
the commandments of God, but doth daily break them. — See Conf., ch. ix., 
sec. 3. Larger Cat., Ans. to Q. 149, and proof-texts. 

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches ; 

1. That the sinner is able to do what God commands ; that the Holy 
Spirit, in the day of his power, makes him willing, and so long as he is 
able and willing there can be no sin. - Sermon on Dependence and Free 
Agency, p. 22. 

2. The Perfectionists have founded on Dr. Beecher 's theory the following 
pinching argument : 

e< Who does not know that theology, as renovated and redeemed from 
the contradictions and absurdities of former ages by such spirits as Beecher, 
Taylor, and their associates, forms the stepping-stone to Perfection ? Who, 
that can draw an obvious conclusion from established premises, but must 
see, at a glance, that Christian Perfection, substantially as we hold it, is the 
legitimate product of New England divinity ? We have been taught in their 
schools that sin lies wholly in the will, and that man, as a free agent, pos- 
sesses adequate ability, independent of gracious aid, to render perfect obedi- 
ence to the moral law ; in other words, to be a Perfectionist. They have 
established the theory that, by virtue of a fixedness of purpose, man is able 
to stand against the wiles of the devil, and fully to answer the end of his 
being. Now, if this system, which the opposers of the New School men 
were not able to gainsay, teaching man's ability, independent of gracious 
aid, to be perfect, to answer fully the end for which his Maker created 



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89 



him, — if this be Orthodoxy, I ask, Is it heresy to affirm that, by virtue of aid 
from a risen Saviour, superadded to free moral agency, the thing is done ? 
I see 1 no point of rest 9 for the advocates of the New Divinity, short of the 
doctrine of Perfection. If they will not advance, they must go back, and 
adopt the inability system of their opponents, which they have so often and 
so ably demonstrated to be the climax of absurdity and folly." — See Letter 
to Theodore D. Weld, member of Lane Theological Seminary, published in 
The Perfectionist, vol. I., No. 1, August 20, 1834, by Whitmore & Bucking- 
ham, New Haven, Conn. 

IV. I charge Dr. Beecher with the sin of slander, namely : 

Specification 1. — In belying the whole church of God. 

The Doctor's statements are these : " There is no position which unites 
more universally and entirely the suffrages of the whole human race than 
the necessity of a capacity for obedience to the existence of obligation and 
desert of punishment." Again : " The doctrine of marC *s free agency and 
natural ability, as the ground of obligation and guilt, has been the received 
doctrine of the Orthodox Church in all ages." — Sermon " Dependence and 
Free Agency," pp. 23 and 36. 

Specification 2. — In attempting to bring odium upon all who sincerely 
receive the standards of the Presbyterian Church, and to cast all the 
Reformers, previous to the time of Edwards, into the shade of ignorance and 
contempt. 

Dr. Beecher says : " Doubtless the impression often made by their 
language (language of the Reformers) has been that of natural im- 
potency ; and in modern days there may be those who have not under- 
stood the language of the Reformers, or of the Bible, on this subject ; 
and who verily believe that both teach that man has no ability, of any kind 
or degree, to do anything that is spiritually good, and that the rights of 
God to command and to punish survive the wreck and extinction in his 
subjects of the elements of accountability. Of such, if there be such in the 
church, we have only to say, that when, for the time, they ought to be 
teachers, they have need that some one should teach them which be the 
first principles of the oracles of God." — Sermon "Dependence and Free 
Agency," p. 41. Again : 

"It must be admitted, however, that from the primitive age down to the 
time of Edwards, few saw this subject with clearness, or traced it with uni- 
form precision and consistency. His appears to have been the mind that first 
rose above the mists which long hung over the subject." — p. 41. Again : 

" So far as the Calvinistic system, as expounded by Edwards and the 
VOL. III. 8* 



90 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



disciples of his school, prevailed, revivals prevailed, and heresy was kept 
back. And most notoriously it was 6 dead orthodoxy ' which opened the 
dikes, and let in the flood ' of Arminian and Unitarian heresy.' " By attend- 
ing to the whole passage, page 48, same sermon, the Presbytery will see 
that " dead orthodoxy," as the Doctor calls it, was the doctrine of man's 
natural impotency to obey the Gospel. — p. 48. The Doctor attempts to 
make us believe that, from the time of Edwards, the theory of this sermon 
has been, and now is, the received doctrine of the ministers and churches 
of New England. The truth of this I am not prepared to admit, bad as I 
think of the New England theologians in general ; but I am not prepared 
to deny it. Be it so, — the matter is so much the worse. Again the Doctor 
proceeds, in his strain of calumny, — "Far the greater portion of the 
revivals of our land, it is well known, have come to pass under the 
auspices of Calvinism, as modified by Edwards and the disciples of his 
school, and under the inculcation of ability and obligation, and urgent 
exhortations of immediate repentance and submission to God ; while con- 
gregations and regions over which natural impotency and dependence, 
and the impenitent use of means, and waiting God's time, have disclosed 
their tendencies, have remained, like Egypt, dark beside the land of 
Goshen ; and like the mountain of Gilboa, on which there was no rain, .nor 
fields of offering ; and like the valley of vision, dead, dry, very dry." — 
p. 49. 

And, to complete the climax, the Doctor adds : " No other obstruction to 
the success of the Gospel is so great, as the possession of the public 
mind by the belief of the natural and absolute inability of unconverted 
men. It has done more, I verily believe, to wrap in sackcloth the Sun of 
Bighteousness, and perpetuate the shadow of death on those who might 
have been rejoicing in his light, than all errors beside. I cannot anticipate 
a greater calamity to the church than would follow its universal inculcation 
and adoption. And most blessed and glorious, I am confident, will be the 
result, when her ministry everywhere shall rightly understand and teach, 
and their hearers shall universally admit, the full ability of every sinner 
to comply with the terms of salvation. " — p. 52. 

Let the Presbytery compare all this with the history of the Church, and 
the doctrine of our standards on original sin, total depravity, the misery 
of the fall, regeneration, and effectual calling, and say whether there is an 
Arminian, or a Pelagian, or a Unitarian, in the land, who will not agree 
with Dr. Beecher, and admit " the full ability of every sinner to comply 
with the terms of salvation," and unite with him in considering it a 
calamity for the doctrines of our standards to be universally adopted ! 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



91 



V. I charge Dr. Beecher with the crime of preaching the same, and 
kindred doctrines, contained in these sermons, in the Second Presbyterian 
church, in Cincinnati. 

VI. I charge Dr. Beecher with the sin of hypocrisy : I mean dissimula- 
tion in important religious matters. 

Specification 1. — If Dr. Beecher has entered the Presbyterian Church 
without adopting her standards, he is guilty of this sin. This I believe, 
because I am informed he was received as a member of the Third Presbytery 
of New York, without appearing before them ; because he was received by 
the Presbytery of Cincinnati, without adopting our standards ; and because 
the installation service does not require their adoption. 

2. If Dr. Beecher has adopted our standards, he is guilty of this sin, 
because it is evident he disbelieves and impugns them on important points, 
subjects declared by himself to be of the utmost moment. 

3. When Dr. Beecher's orthodoxy was in question, — I think before the 
Synod in the First Presbyterian church, — he made a popular declaration 
" that our confession of faith contained the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth," or words to that amount. I thought then, and still 
think, that it was dissimulation for popular effect. The crime is inferable 
from the circumstances of the case. If he has adopted the standards of our 
Church, as our form of government requires, it is competent for him to 
show when and where. But the charge of hypocrisy is equally sustained, 
in my estimation, whether he has or has not. He may take whichever 
alternative he can best defend. 

4. "When Dr. Beecher preached and published his sermon on Dependence 
and Free Agency, he was just about to enter the Presbyterian Church, with 
an expectation of being pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincin- 
nati, and teacher of theology in Lane Seminary. He either did not know 
the doctrines of our Church, or, if he did know them, he designed to 
impugn and vilify those who honestly adopt them. 

My witnesses to prove that he published the sermon in view of entering 
the Presbyterian Church are Dr. Woods, of Andover, and Prof. Stuart, 
Prof. Briggs, Robert Boal, Jabez C. Tunis, Augustus Moore, James Mc- 
Intire and P. Skinner. . The allegation respecting the Perfectionists, if 
denied, can be proven by their publication, from which I have made an 
extract. Charges 1, 2, 3 and 4, are sustained by Dr. Beecher's printed 
sermons on the 'Native Character of Man," and on "Dependence and 
Free Agency," both of which are herewith submitted for examination. 

If Dr. Beecher denies being the author of these sermons, published under 



92 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



his name, the authorship can be proved by Rev. Austin Dickinson, Rev. Dr. 
Woods, of Andover, and Perkins & Marvin, of Boston, Mass. The witnesses 
to prove the 5th charge are Augustus Moore, Jeptha D. Ganst, John Sul- 
livan, Robert Wallace, James Mclntire, P. Skinner and James Hall, Esq. 

The third specification under charge 6th I expect to prove, if it be 
denied, by the members of this Presbytery, including myself ; but I will 
name Rev. Sayres Gazley, John Burtt, L. G. Gaines, Daniel Hayden, and 
others. 

And now, brethren, you will not forget that the Synod of Cincinnati have 
enjoined it upon you to exercise the discipline of the Church, even upon 
, those who disturb her peace by new terms and phrases ; much more are 
you bound to exercise it on those who destroy her purity by false doctrine, 
and vilify her true ministry. 

In the case of Dr. Beecher, I send you an extract from the minutes of the 
Synod : " The Synod do not say that there are not sufficient reasons for 
the Presbytery to take up a charge or charges on common fame ; but are 
fully of the opinion that, of that, Presbytery has full liberty to judge for 
themselves ; and that they can be compelled to take up a charge only by a 
responsible prosecutor." An attested copy of their decision I herewith 
submit. 

I feel it a solemn transaction to accuse any one, especially a professed 
minister of Jesus Christ. It is sometimes a duty to do this. The obliga- 
tion in this case rests upon somebody, and I know of no one who will dis- 
charge it but myself. I have not consulted flesh and blood, but the 
interests of the Church of Jesus Christ, before whose judgment-seat we 
must all appear. I have counted the cost ; and now call upon you, in 
presence of God, for your due deliberation and decision upon every charge 
submitted. 

With all due regard, I am your brother in the Gospel of Christ, 

J. L. Wilson. 

Dr. Beecher being called upon to answer, said: C£ I am 
not guilty of heresy ; I am not guilty of slander ; I am not 
guilty of hypocrisy or dissimulation in the respect charged. 
I do not say that I have not taught the doctrines charged ; 
but I deny their being false doctrines. The course I shall 
take will be to justify." 

The Moderator calling upon Dr. Beecher to say what 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



93 



plea should be entered upon the minutes in his name, Dr. 
Beecher replied, " The plea of Not Guilty." 

Dr. Wilson said he supposed Dr. Beecher took the proper 
distinction between facts and crimes. He admitted the facts 
specified, but denied the crimes charged. Dr. Wilson wished 
to know whether the admission extended to one of the facts 
respecting which no crime was charged, but which had been 
stated because it was closely connected and linked in with 
the other facts of the case, namely, that Dr. Beecher had 
declared before the Synod that the Confession of Faith of the 
Presbyterian Church contained the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth. 

Dr. Beecher replied that he should not admit the fact 
stated in that naked form ; he would not admit the words 
quoted, without other words by which they had been accom- 
panied. 

Dr. Wilson then said that as to this point he should ask 
leave to adduce testimony. 

A commission was then granted, to take the testimony of 
Professor Biggs, who was in feeble health, and unable to 
attend the court. 

The Kev. Sayres Gasley was then duly sworn and 
examined, and his testimony having been taken down by the 
clerk and read to him, he approved the record as correct. It 
is as follows : 

I remember the circumstance which occurred in Synod to 
which the charge alludes. The precise words contained in 
ihe specification I do not recollect. My impression seems 
clear that, in speaking of the Confession of Faith, Dr. 
Beecher said that it was true, every sentence and every 
word, and that he so believed it. 



94 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Question. — What were the circumstances under which 
the above declaration was made ? 

Ansvier. — I cannot say positively, but, to the best of my 
belief, it was in Dr. Beecher's plea before Synod, in an 
appeal from Dr. Wilson, because Presbytery would not 
appoint a committee to investigate his sermon. 

Dr. Wilson. — Was not the declaration made when Dr. 
Beecher was making a speech on that subject ? 

Arts. — That is my impression. 

Ques. by Dr. Wilson. — Was there a considerable crowd 
of spectators around the Synod at that time ? 
Ans. — I do not recollect. 

Dr. Wilson. — Was there not considerable excitement 
during the discussion of that subject? 
Ans. — There was. 

Rankin. —Was there anything" in the Doctor's manner 
which induced you to believe that it was done for popular 
effect? 

Ans. — I have no distinct recollection at present of notic- 
ing his manner, but from all the circumstances of the case I 
was led to that opinion. 

Rankin. — What were the circumstances of the case ? 

Ans. — The published sentiments of Dr. Beecher, and the 
place where it was uttered. 

Dr. Wilson. — Was not Dr. Beecher at that time 
making an effort to prevent Synod from sustaining my com- 
plaint? 

Ans. — That is my impression now, but I cannot say 
positively. [Read to witness, and approved.] 
The Presbytery then adjourned. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



95 



Wednesday Morning. 

Presbytery met, and was opened with prayer. 

The Rev. A. S. Morison, from the commission appointed 
to take the testimony of Professor Biggs, made the following 
report : 

Walnut Hills, June 10, 1835. 

Meeting opened with prayer. 

Dr. Wilson wished Mr. Biggs to state what he knew on 
the subject, — Whether any Perfectionists were in attendance 
at Lane Seminary the last year ? 

Answer. — As young men whose minds were made up on 
that subject, I do not know that there were any. 

Dr. Wilson. — Were there not students in Lane Semi- 
nary who were making inquiries and manifesting tendencies 
that way ? 

Ans. — I am under the impression that there were some. 

Dr. Wilson. — From what sections of country did those 
young men come ? 

Ans. — From the State of New York. I think I had 
but two or three at all in my mind, of whom I had any 
suspicion. 

Dr. Wilson. — What information did Prof. Biggs give 
me on this subject in a conversation we had at Hamilton? 

Ans. — That Dr. Beecher, so far from countenancing the 
doctrine of Perfectionism, warned his students against such 
sentiments. 

Dr. Wilson. — Were not the statements you made to me 
calculated to impress my mind with the belief that the stu- 
dents who manifested such tendencies to Perfectionism were 
led to place themselves under Dr. Beecher' s instruction in 
consequence of his published views of theology 1 

Ans. — I have no recollection that they were. 



96 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Dr. Beecher. — Did you ever hear any one of the stu- 
dents, at any time, avow the doctrine of Perfection ? 
Ans. — I never did. 

Dr. Beecher. — Had you any evidence of tendency to 
that doctrine, further than what results from questions com- 
mon to inquiring minds, in the investigation of a subject, 
with reference to the formation of an opinion ? 

Ans. — I believe their inquiries were all directed with a 
view to the formation of an ultimate opinion. 

Dr. Beecher. — Were you apprized of the fact that one 
of my lectures was on the subject of Christian Character, and 
in opposition to the doctrine of Perfection ? 

Ans. — I so understood. 

Dr. Wilson. — Did you cite T. D. Weld to appear before 
Presbytery as a witness in this case ? 

Ans. — I did not, for the following reasons : 

1. I understood that the citation of all witnesses, except 
the members of the Presbytery, was dispensed with by 
agreement of the parties. 

2. The same was understood by several of the brethren of 
the Presbytery, with whom I conversed on the subject, after 
the meeting of Presbytery, for the purpose of being myself 
certified of the fact. 

To which I herewith affix my signature, 

Th. I. Biggs. 

The following witnesses were then duly sworn, and their 
testimony recorded, as follows : 

Francis Monforfs Testimony. 
I recollect very well that Dr. Beecher said. — I believe 
the Confession of Faith contains the truth, the whole truth, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



97 



and nothing but the truth; after having shown that he 
received the Confession of Faith as a system. 

Dr. Wilson. — Where, and under what circumstances, 
was the declaration made ? 

Answer. — It was in the First Church, in Synod, on the 
complaint of Dr. Wilson and others against Presbytery for 
not appointing a committee to examine certain sermons of 
Dr. Beecher. 

Dr. Wilsox. — What were the circumstances ? 

A/is. — The doctor was giving his last address ; the house 
was full ; there was considerable excitement. 

Dr. Wilsox. — When the same subject was before Pres- 
bytery, did not Dr. Beecher express his approbation of the 
standards of the Church, with the reservation of putting upon 
them his interpretation ? 

Ans. — So I understood it. 

Dr. Beecher. — Was the statement made before Synod 
attended by an explanation or qualification ? 
Ans. — I heard none. 

Dr. Beecher. — Did I profess before the Synod a belief 
in the Confession of Faith according to any other interpreta- 
tion than the one I put upon it I 

Ans. — I heard nothing said about interpretation. [Bead 
to witness, and approved.] 

Mr. Aton's Testimony. 

I recollect distinctly that in the time and place specified 
in the charges — 

[Dr. Beecher admits that the time, place and audience, 
were as described by the preceding witness.] 

Witness resinned. — Dr. Beecher said he believed the 
Confession of Faith contained the truth 7 the whole truth, and 

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98 



VIEWS OE THEOLOGY. 



nothing but the truth. I heard no qualifications. [Read, 
&c] 

Mr. Gaines 9 Testimony. 
I recollect very- little distinctly. I recollect that Dr. 
Beecher uttered the words mentioned by Mr. Aton, and made 
a gesture more violent than usual ; cannot recollect whether 
it was before Presbytery or Synod. [Read, &c] 

Mr. Burt's Testimony. 
I agree with the witnesses in respect to the time, place and 
circumstances, so far as I have heard. I distinctly recollect 
that the Doctor, in the course of his speech, stated that the 
Confession of Faith contained the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth. Not expecting to be called upon. I 
have not treasured up a recollection of the circumstances, 
whether there were any qualifications or not. [Read, &c] 

D. Hayden's Testimony. 

I heard Dr. Beecher say that he believed the Confession 
of Faith to contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth. I remember no qualifying statements. I 
think I should have remembered such qualifications, had they 
been made. 

Dr. Wilson. — What was the declaration in Presbytery 
on the same subject ? 

Answer. — I do not recollect. [Read, &c] 

F. A. Kemper's Testimony. 

I was a member of Synod in 1833. Dr. Beecher said he 
believed the Confession of Faith contained the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He made no ex- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



99 



planation at the time. When Dr. Wilson was replying, Dr. 
Beecher got up and made explanations. 

Dr. Wilson. — Was you a member of Presbytery at 
the time the same subject was up there 7 

Answer. — I think I was. 

Dr. Wilson. — What were Dr. Beecher' s declarations as 
to his reception of the Confession of Faith there ? 

Arts. — That he adopted it as a system ; the Doctor called 
no man Father on earth, nor allowed any man to explain the 
Bible or Confession of Faith to him. 

Mr. Gaines. — Had the explanations reference to the 
words, or something else ? 

Ans. — To the words only. 

Dr. Beecher. — What were the explanations ? 

Ans. — I do not recollect. [Read, &c] 

Judge Jacob BurneVs Testimony. 
Called in by Dr. Beecher. 

I was present at the time referred to by the other wit- 
nesses. I heard Dr. Beecher's address to the Synod. I 
recollect distinctly that in that part of his address in which 
he spoke of the Confession of Faith he said that there had 
been a time when he could not subscribe to the whole of it ; 
but by mature deliberation, and ascertaining to his own satis- 
faction what was the meaning attached to the terms w r hen the 
Confession of Faith was written, the difficulty was entirely 
removed. He added that he now believed the Confession of 
Faith contained the truth, and I thought he said the whole 
truth. He raised his hands to his bosom, and said he believed 
it to be one of the best expositions of the meaning of the 
Scripture. I cannot give his words precisely. [Read, &c] 



100 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Ji. Duncan' 's Testimony. 

Dr. Beecher. — How long have you been a member of 
Lane Seminary ? 

Answer. — Two years and a half. 

Dr. Beecher. — How long a member of the Theological 

Class? 

Arts. — About a year and a half. 

Dr. Beecher. — Have you heard the testimony of Mr, 
Weed, and do your views correspond with his ? 

Ans. — Yes ; except that my recollection of the discussion 
is not as distinct as his. 

Dr. Wilson. — Did you see the letter addressed to T. D. 
Weld, in the Perfectionist ? 

Ans. — ■ I saw it in Delhi, two miles from this city. 

Dr. Wilson. — Who wrote that Jetter ? 

Ans. — I do not distinctly recollect his name ; I think it 
was Dutton. 

Dr. Wilson. — What was the general character and standing 
of Mr. Dutton ? 

Ans. — I know nothing about him, except that he was once 
studying theology with Mr. Kirk, of Albany. I have heard 
his intellect spoken of as one of great value. 

Dr. Wilson. — On what occasion and in what manner did 
Dr. Beecher warn the students against the Perfectionists ? 

Ans. — I recollect no such warnings. I never heard of 
them, until I saw the letter in the Perfectionist at Delhi. 
I heard the lecture mentioned by Mr. W eed. 

George Beecher. — Did you see the written or printed 
copy of the letter ? 

Ans. — The printed. 

Mr. Rankin. — Do you know why he left Mr. Kirk? 
Ans. — No. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



101 



Mr. Rankin. — Was the Perfectionist* s letter addressed 
to Mr." Weld, on the supposition that he was a Perfectionist? 

Arts. — No. It contained a labored argument to show him 
the truth of those doctrines. 

Mr. Graves. — Did you ever hear that Dr. Beecher was 
suspected of Perfectionism ? 

Ans. — Never, until I heard these charges. [Read, &c] 

Mr. LittWs Testimony. 

Dr. Beecher. — What are your recollections of my language 
before Synod ? 

Answer. — I concur with J udge Burnet and Mr. Woodbury, 
except I heard this expression a little stronger than their 
language : " Dr. B. said the Confession of Faith and Cate- 
chisms contained the best compendium of the doctrine of the 
Bible he had seen." [Read, &c] 

Mr. Brainerd's Testimony. 

I have seen the paper called the JF* erf ectio?iist, and read it 
carefully. I have seen also many other extracts from the 
writings of the Perfectionists. They have three ways of be- 
coming perfect. The first is, they believe themselves able to 
obey God, and do so. When pushed with difficulties in that 
view of the subject, they represent themselves as being, by 
the literal imputation of the righteousness of Christ to them, 
in that condition that God looks upon them as one with Christ, 
and does not regard their sins as sins. Again, they repre- . 
sent, sometimes, their perfection to be the result of the special 
grace of God ; they say that God hears and answers all right 
prayer, that their perfection is a grace received in answer to 
their prayers. 

Dr. Wilson. — Is not the whole theory of the Perfectionists 
vol. in. 9* 



102 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



built upon the hypothesis of the natural ability of man to do 
all that God requires, and that sin lies wholly in the will ? 

Answer. — No : with those that believe in natural ability 
and moral inability, they reason according to the sentiment of 
the question ; with others, that deny this doctrine, they reason 
upon a different assumption. 

Dr. Wilson. — With what difficulties are those pressed wno 
hold to the ability of man to do what God requires, and say 
they do it ? 

Ans. — I will not pretend to state all. The fact is shown, 
from their own conduct, that they do violate the laws of God ; 
those passages of scripture are opposed to them, which state 
that Christians, though not constrained by natural necessity, 
do sin. 

Dr. Wilson. — What practices of the Perfectionists contra- 
dict their theory and profession, and how do you know that 
they are guilty of those practices ? 

Ans. — They appear to fall into the same sins as other 
men, and I learn the fact that they thus sin, 1st, by the Bible, 
which teacheth that no man liveth and sinneth not ; and 2d, by 
the statements of their opponents, brought out in the publica- 
tions of the day. 

Dr. Wilson. — Are you personally and intimately ac- 
quainted with any persons of that denomination ? 

Ans. — I never saw one. 

Dr. Wilson. — What do they mean by the literal imputa- 
tion of the righteousness of Christ % 

Ans. — They seem to mean, that they are so united to 
Christ, that all his obedience becomes theirs, in such a sense 
as to release them from criminality, although they violate the 
law of God. 

Dr. Beecher. — Do those Calvinists who teach the doctrine 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



103 



of the literal imputation of Christ's Righteousness to believers 
deny the doctrine of man's natural ability ? 

Ans. — In speculation they do ; in practice I believe most 
of them assume it to be true. 

Mr. Gasley. — Did not the system originate with those who 
held the doctrine of natural ability ? 

Ans. — From the region where it originated, I should think 
it probable ; but I have no certain knowledge. 

Mr. Rankin. — Does not their system teach that man has 
by nature both natural and moral ability to do all that God 
requires of him ? 

Ans. — Strictly speaking, I think not ; they do not deny 
that men have by nature an aversion to God, which has been 
called inability, which makes regeneration necessary. 

Mr. Aton. — What do those Calvinists mean who teach the 
literal imputation of Christ's Righteousness? 

Ans. — There is a class of professed Calvinists who seem 
to teach the doctrine of imputation, the ^ame doctrine as the 
Perfectionists ; but this I would not apply to any of those 
who hold and teach the doctrine of imputation in the sense of 
our Confession of Faith. [Read, &c] 

The oral testimony having now been completed ; 

The first charge was read a second time, and, as it referred 
to certain passages in Dr. Beecher's sermons, the clerk was 
about to read the passages cited ; when 

Mr. Rankin moved that the entire sermon, and ftot ex- 
tracts only, be read. 

Dr. Wilson said, that if the whole sermon was to be read 
because a part of it was referred to in the charges, the whole 
Confession of Faith might as well be read, for certain parts of 
it were also cited. 



104 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Professor Biggs could not consent that merely isolated 
passages should be read ; he should be most unwilling to have 
his own character tried by garbled extracts selected from his 
writings ; he could in that manner prove every man in the 
Presbytery a heretic. Let the connection of the passages with 
their context be seen ; let their bearing be understood ; let 
the Presbytery receive the same impression as the audience 
had received, before whom the sermons were delivered ; and 
as to the objection which had been urged, if it was necessary 
for consistency's sake to read the whole Confession of Faith, 
let it be read. 

Mr. Rankin said there was an obvious difference between 
the reading of the Confession and the reading of the sermon. 
The Confession of Faith was not introduced before the court 
as evidence ; the sermon had been : nor could the court have 
any just and adequate conception of what the passages cited 
conveyed, unless they listened to the whole, and understood 
the connection. Besides, in one part of the charge the sermons 
at large were cited, without any particular passages being 
specified. 

Dr. Wilson admitted, on reflection, that the cases of the 
Confession and the Sermon were not analogous. He had no 
objection to the reading of the sermons entire : it could do no 
harm : but he wished the court to bear in mind that there was 
such a thing as insinuating the most deadly poison into the 
most wholesome aliment. He was ready to admit that the 
sermons (and he had read them attentively many times) did 
contain many things that were excellent : but the ground of 
his charge was that the author had placed in the very midst 
of them the most deleterious poison. Were Dr. Wilson 
invited to partake of a dish of what appeared to be food of the 
most nutritious kind, and after commencing, and finding it 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



105 



to be delicious and wholesome, he should suddenly come to a 
deposit of arsenic, he should stop, and eat no more, unless he 
could with certainty pass over that portion of the preparation, 
and complete his meal with what was not poisoned. Let the 
whole be read : the court, he was well assured, would be able 
to separate the precious from the vile. 

Dr. Beecher said it was his right to have the documents 
referred to in the charges read entire. 

The Moderutor admitted . this : but expressed a doubt 
whether the present was the proper stage in the proceedings at 
which this right might be exercised. In his defence Dr. 
Beecher might very properly give the whole sermon in argu- 
ment, to show that the charge was not well founded. 

Dr. Beecher still insisted on having the whole read. If 
Dr. Wilson wished to verify the extracts he had made, Dr. 
Beecher was ready to admit their accuracy : at least, he took it 
for granted the passages had been copied correctly. But it was 
certainly the fair and correct mode of proceeding to allow the 
body of the sermon, as delivered, to make its own impression, 
and then the force of the passages excepted to could be better 
judged of. In no well-constructed sermon could a single pas- 
sage give the effect of the whole. A sermon was heretical or 
otherwise according to the combined and intended results of 
all its parts taken together. In every properly written ser- 
mon, the combined effect was the end aimed at, and all the 
parts were so arranged, and so made to follow each other, as 
best to secure that end. Let the sermon tell its own story : 
and then the court might make what analysis of it they might 
deem proper. 

The sermons on the Native Character of Man — as given 
in this volume, pp. 53 — 82 — were thereupon read. 

The second, third and fourth charges were read : and then 



106 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the sermon to which they referred, namely , " Dependence and 
Free Agency/' a sermon delivered in Andover Theological 
Seminary, July 16, 1832, — as given in this volume, pp. 
13—52. 

Dr. Wilson stated that he wished to lay before the Presby- 
tery certain information showing on what grounds he had been 
induced to state that the Perfectionists claimed Dr. Beecher 
as strengthening their hypothesis. 

The Moderator inquired whether Dr. Wilson wished to 
introduce this information as testimony in support of any one 
of the charges he had preferred ? 

He replied that he did not : it was a letter from an indi- 
vidual who was not and could not be present, and whose testi- 
mony had not been formally taken. 

After a discussion, the letter to which Dr. Wilson referred 
was permitted to be read. It was a letter contained in a 
newspaper published at New Haven, entitled " The Perfec- 
tionist" and addressed to Theodore Weld, late a student in 
Lane Seminary. 

The letter being very long, and appearing to be on a subject 
wholly unconnected with the matter in hand, it was moved 
that the reading be arrested, and that only so much be read 
as Dr. Wilson had referred to. 

The Moderator decided, that, if any part of the paper was 
read, the whole must be. 

Mr. Rankin inquired what was the signature of the letter. 

The Clerk stated that it had no signature : whereupon, oh 
motion of Mr. Burnet, seconded by Prof. Biggs, the paper 
was rejected, as being no testimony. 

Dr. Wilson gave notice that he took exception to this de- 
cision ; in order that he might avail himself of such exception, 
should the case go up to Synod. And also, that he should 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



107 



avail himself of the testimony introduced by Dr. Beecher 
before the last meeting of Presbytery, namely, his own sermon, 
with a review of the same by Dr. Green. 

The examination of testimony being resumed ; 

Dr. Wilson stated that he had no further testimony on the 
part of the charges. 

Silas Woodbury' was examined, and his testimony is as 
follows : 

I was present in the Synod, when Dr. Beecher gave his 
statement; and facts are substantially as given by Judge 
Burnet, according to the best of my recollection. 

The testimony being now closed, it was moved that the 
parties be heard. 

Dr. Wilson stated that he was much exhausted, and re- 
quested an adjournment. 

Dr. Beecher gave notice that he might have occasion to 
introduce further testimony, should he be able to procure it, 
before proceeding to the defence. 

Presbytery then took up other business before them, and 
which occupied the judicatory until the hour of adjournment. 

Presbytery then adjourned. 



Thursday Morning. 
Presbytery met, and was opened with prayer. 
Further testimony was introduced on the part of Dr. 
Beecher. 

Dr. Wilson said that he wished to apprize the Presbytery 
of a difficulty which must arise from their having rejected the 
information he had been desirous of laying before them, and 
which was contained in a letter not permitted to be read. If 
the present trial should not terminate according to the views 



108 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



of the prosecutor, and the case should go up to the Synod, it 
would be necessary for him to obtain from Synod an attested 
copy of their decision in the case, which would be attended 
with great delay. But, if this letter should now be received, 
the delay and inconvenience would be avoided. It would be 
remembered that there was an express rule, which admits the 
offering of new testimony before a superior court in cases of 
appeal, where the court should deem such testimony requisite 
to a right decision. 

Mr. Brainerd observed there need be no difficulty, as Dr. 
Wilson could get from the Synod all he had need of. 

Dr. Wilson said that the writer of the letter was the Rev. 
Dr. Phillips, of New York ; and that he should have cited 
him as a witness upon the present trial, if he had not under- 
stood that the citation of all witnesses, save the members of 
the court, was by agreement waived. 

Mr. Brainerd said, that nothing of this sort had been 
stated before the Presbytery. 

Dr. Wilson then observed, that as there appeared to be 
some mistake as to the extent of Dr. Beecher's concessions, 
he wanted to know whether the fourth specification of the 
sixth charge was conceded, or not. 

Dr. Bee cher replied that all was conceded which was 
contained in the sermon referred to. 

Dr. Wilson then inquired, if the fact in that specification 
was not conceded, whether he had not a right to the testimony 
which he had cited to support it ; and whether the cause must 
not be suspended till such testimony was obtained. He was 
resolved to have that testimony before he proceeded any 
further. 

Dr. Beecher wished to know, whether, supposing that 
specification to be proved, Dr. Wilson meant to avail himself 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



109 



of it with a view to show that the sermon in question had been 
Written and shaped in reference to Dr. Beecher* s coming into 
the Presbyterian church. The date of the sermon would 
speak for itself, without any concession. If Dr. Wilson 
wanted to know whether the sermon was printed at the time 
Dr. Beecher was about coming into the Presbyterian church, 
there was no secret about the matter. But if he wanted it to 
be conceded that the sermon was either prepared or published 
with reference to Dr. Beecher's coming to this place and being 
the President of Lane Seminary, that would not be conceded. 
Dr. Wilson might argue from the date of the sermon in any 
way he pleased. 

Dr. WlLSON said, all he wanted was the fact, that he 
might use it in argument. If Dr. Beecher conceded the fact, 
Dr. Wilson would have the right to draw such inference from 
it as he might deem proner. 

Dr. Beecher. — You may draw it. As to the fact, it is 
conceded. 

The concession was, by Dr. Wilson's desire, put upon 
record. 

Dr. Beecher now called for the testimony of Edward 
Weed. 

Dr. Wilson inquired whether Mr. Weed was a member of 
the church. 

The Moderator replied that he was an elder of the Fourth 
church in Cincinnati, and a candidate under the care of the 
Chillicothe Presbytery. 

Mr. Weed was thereupon duly sworn : and his testimony, 
being taken, was as follows : 

Dr. Beecher. — How long was you a member of the Lane 
Seminary ? 

Answer. — Two years and a half. 

VOL. III. 10 



110 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Dr. Beecher. — How long a member of the Theological 
Class? 

Arts. — One year. 

Dr. Beecher. — Was there, during your continuance in the 
seminary, to your knowledge, any member who was a Per- 
fectionist ? 

Arts. — I knew of none. 

Dr. Beecher. — Was there any whom you regarded as 
tending to that opinion ? 
Ans. — None. 

Dr. Wilson. — Did you, while a member of that seminary, 
see a letter addressed to T. D. Weld, in the Perfectionist ? 

Ans. — I saw it in the city. [Weed resided on Walnut 
Hills, at the Seminary.] 

Dr. Wilson. — Who was the writer of that letter ? 

Ans. — I cannot say. 

Dr. Wilson. — Do you know why Dr. Beecher warned 
the students against Perfectionism, and delivered a set lec- 
ture on that subject? 

Ans. — I think I know. I think that, in one of the 
lectures of Dr. Beecher, the discussion came up, whether an 
individual could, at the same time, be under the exercise of 
religious feeling and commit sin. 

Dr. Wilson. — What arguments were advanced by some 
of the students in favor of the doctrine, that, while under 
religious feeling, Christians cannot commit sin ? 

Ans. — The discussion was simply in the form of questions 
and answers ; and it was argued on the part of the students, 
in this discussion, that an individual's feelings were, at the 
same time, entirely holy or entirely sinful. 

Dr. BeecSer. — Did every student profess to express his 
own opinion on those subjects ? 



TRIAL BY PRESBYTERY. 



Ill 



Ans. — No. They simply argued on that side of the 
question, in order to elicit Dr. Beecher's opinion. 

Dr. Beecher. — Was it in immediate connection with this 
discussion (perhaps at the next lecture) that I gave a 
regular discussion of this subject ? 

Ans. — I think it was the next lecture, — he explained 
the seventh chapter of Romans to the class. 

Dr. Beecher. — Was it in opposition to the views of the 
Perfectionists ? 

Ans. — It was in opposition to the theory that the Chris- 
tian's feelings are entirely holy or entirely sinful. It had not 
special reference to the Perfectionists. 

Dr. Beecher. — Did any student express it as his opinion 
in any other form than to elicit opinions from me 1 

Ans. — No, not in the discussion. 

Dr. Wilson. — Did every student express it as his opinion 
in any other place, in their intercourse with their fellow- 
students ? 

Ans. — There were many students who expressed their 
opinion that each moral feeling is entirely holy or entirely 
sinful, but not an individual who believed in the doctrine of 
the Perfectionists. 

Dr. Beecher. — Were there any of the students who 
believed that any person in this life attained to that state 
where they had only holy affections, and none sinful ? 

Ans. — Not an individual ; they all discarded it. 

Dr. Beecher. — Did their sense of their own depravity 
correspond with that of other Christians in their conversation 
and confessions of sin in prayer ? 
■ Ans. — Yes. 

Mr. Brainerd. — Did you ever hear that Dr. Beecher 



112 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



was suspected of Perfectionism, until you heard it from Dr. 
Wilson's charges 7 

Ans. — I never heard, until yesterday, that Dr. Beecher 
was charged or suspected of Perfectionism. [Read, &c] 

Dr. Wilson then addressed the court as follows : 

Moderator : The important and blessed ends of Church 
government and discipline can only be attained by a wise and 
faithful administration. In the hand of Church officers the 
Lord Jesus Christ has placed the government of his kingdom 
on earth ; and I can conceive of no station more responsible 
than that occupied by those officers to whom are committed 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; — to open that kingdom to 
the penitent ; to shut it against the impenitent ; to vindicate 
the truth and the honor of Christ ; to purge out that unholy 
leaven of error which might infect the whole lump ; to deter 
men from the commission of offences, and prevent the wrath 
of God from falling on the church.^ 

It belongs to the officers of the kingdom of our Lord, when 
solemnly convened as a court of Christ, ministerially and 
authoritatively to determine not only cases of conscience and 
matters of practice, but to decide controversies of faith ; and 
their decisions, if consonant to the word of God, are to be 
received with reverence and submission, f 

Of all the subjects brought before a Church court for 
adjudication, none are so important as controversies of faith, 
and none so difficult to determine. None so important, 
because truth is essential to purity, peace, and goodness ; and 
no crime, of a pardonable nature, is so great as that of cor- 
rupting the word of God, so as to preach another Gospel. 
No adjudications are more difficult, because, under the ap- 



* Confession of Faith, ch. xxx. p. 129. 



t Ibid. p. 132. 



TRIAL BY PRESBYTERY. 



113 



pearance of piety, zeal, and liberality, — by popular talent 
and the arts of persuasion, by the concealing of the poison 
of asps under the pure milk and meat of some salutary 
truths, and by an appeal to numbers and wealth and 
success, — false teachers, if it were possible, would deceive 
the very elects The whole history of the Church proves 
that no crime ever committed has been so complicated, so 
hard to be detected, so difficult of eradication, so hurtful to 
the Church, so ruinous to the world, as the preaching of 
another gospel. And, Sir, no class of men has ever pos- 
sessed more talent, manifested more zeal, exhibited more 
perseverance, or exerted greater numerical and pecuniary 
power, or gained a more elevated popular applause, than 
some false teachers. And this, we have reason to believe, 
will continue to be the case till " the day of the Lord cometh 
that shall burn as an oven," till " the sons of Levi shall be 
purified," " the sanctuary of God cleansed," and u the king- 
dom, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole 
heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most 
High." Were it necessary, before an enlightened court of 
Christ, to support these statements by proof and illustration, 
I might cite to you the state of the Church in the time of , 
Jeroboam, in the days of Ahab, and the period which elapsed 
between the reign of Josiah and the eleventh year of Zede- 
kiah. I might remind you of those who compassed sea and 
land to make a proselyte, in the time of Christ ; of those who 
called the apostles and elders from their fields of labor to 
determine a controversy about doctrine, commenced at An- 
tibch and adjudicated at Jerusalem. I might tell the long 
and melancholy stories of Arius, Pelagius, Socinus, and 



VOL. III. 



* Matthew 24 : 24. 

10* 



114 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Arminms : I might speak of the powerful but perverted 
talents of the great Erasmus, and notice the dazzling splen- 
dor of Edward Irving : I might name men in our own times, 
in our own Church, whose eloquence and popularity have 
deluded thousands, and turned them aside from the truth and 
simplicity of the Gospel. But I . forbear, and only add, that 
the case before you is a case precisely in point. You are 
called upon to determine a controversy about doctrines ; — ■ 
doctrines intimately connected with practice ; doctrines of 
vital interest to the Church of Christ ; doctrines which are 
parts of a system wholly subversive of the Gospel of God ; 
doctrines which have been propagated with a zeal and talent 
worthy of a better cause, and the propagation of which has 
deeply convulsed and shaken into disunion the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States, from the Atlantic to the Mis- 
souri, and from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. 

And now, Sir, permit me to remind you, while sitting as a 
court of Jesus Christ, that there are several things which 
stand as prominent obstacles in the way of a just decision ; 
and these I must be permitted to remove, before it will be 
possible for you to make a decision in accordance with the 
standards of the Church : 

1. The character of the accuser in this prosecution stands 
as one, and the first, obstacle in the way of a correct decision. 
The accuser, in this prosecution, is considered by many as a 
litigious, ultra partisan in the Presbyterian Church. In 
attempting to wipe away this odium, he puts in no plea of 
personal merit. He feels himself to be a man of like passions 
with others ; and, when he has felt deeply, his language has 
been plain, and has strongly expressed the feelings of his 
heart. Whatever may have been the opinions formed of his 
merit or demerit, these opinions ought to have no place in the 



TRIAL BY PRESBYTERY. 



115 



trial. Yet jour records contain matter going to show thai 
documents had been received by the court which were in- 
tended to prove the ecclesiastical incompetency of the prose- 
cutor. Whether those documents have been placed upon 
your files : whether they are anonymous, or over respons- 
ible names ; whether they are so placed that they will be 
come-at-able in case of need. — are matters not for me to 
decide. The very record itself, in respect to these papers, is 
so equivocal in its terms, that no future historian will, from 
inspecting it, be able to tell whether the charges have been 
taken up by Presbytery on the ground that the accuser is com- 
petent, or from mere courtesy to the feelings of the accused. 
The supposition that the admission of the charges has been 
purely gratuitous, and that they have been acted upon out of 
mere courtesy to the accused, places an obstacle in the course 
of justice. How far it will be permitted to operate. I pre- 
tend not to say : but I do believe that that will be the impres- 
sion produced, because I know something of impressions 
made upon the human mind. I feel persuaded that neither 
rashness nor unkindness has appeared either in the charges 
themselves or in the manner of conducting them. Whatever 
may have been my youthful indiscretions, or whatever may 
have been the spirit I have manifested when again and again 
placed at your bar, I think I may appeal to you, Sir, and to 
every member of this court, to say whether, in the course of 
the present trial thus far, it has not been conducted, on my 
part, with that temper, and in that manner, which becomes 
one standing in the important station which I occupy. I 
hbve manifested no impatience under much needless delay ; I 
have treated the court with due deference, and the man 
whose theological sentiments I cannot approve with uniform 
respect and courtesy. I feel confident, therefore, that when 



116 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

the subject shall be viewed in all its parts, the obstacle which 
arises from the character of the accuser will be removed, and 
you will approach the decision of the cause, in that respect at 
least, with an unbiased mind. 

2. A second obstacle in the way of a just decision of this 
trial is found in the character, standing and talents, of the 
accused. Were the accused a man isolated in society, of but 
moderate talents, low attainments, and of bad moral character, 
there would be little, perhaps no difficulty, in obtaining a 
decision against him ; but the very reverse of all this is true. 
And it is also true, as has been strenuously pleaded before 
you (with what effect I know not), that Dr. Beecher, by a 
long life of correct conduct, and by the diligent promulgation 
of what he believes to be religious truth, has acquired a large 
Gapital in character and reputation, on which it has been sup- 
posed that he could live in the West, notwithstanding all 
opposition. While all this is not denied, and while it is 
freely admitted that his efforts, especially in the temperance 
cause, have been such as to secure him not only admiration 
at home, but fame in both hemispheres, and throughout the 
world, — yet it is believed to be very questionable whether he 
has been able to import with him here all that amount of 
capital in established character which he possessed before 
crossing the Appalachian. On this point, I shall refer the 
court to what was written in New England touching the 
manner of his acquiring this capital, and also showing the 
loss of much of it before he took his stand among us of the 
West; thereby proving that the loss he has sustained was 
not owing to the opposition he has had to encounter on this 
side the mountains, but was incurred in the land from which 
he emigrated. I shall beg to call the attention of the Pres- 
bytery to two short passages in a book entitled, " Letters on 



TRIAL BY PRESBYTERY. 



117 



the Present State and Probable Results of Theological Specu- 
lations in Connecticut/' J 

Mr. Braixerd inquired who was the author of the 
letters. 

Dr. WiLSON stated, in reply, that they appeared under 
the signature of " An Edwardean.'" and contended that they 
were to be received on the same footing as the papers sub- 
mitted by Dr. Beecher at the last meeting of Presbytery. 

Mr. Braixerd thought not ; those papers had been 
'signed with the initials J. L. W., understood to mean Joshua 
L. Wilson. 

Dr. Wilson replied, that he introduced these extracts in 
order to show how the views expressed in the letters of Dr. 
Beecher and Dr. Woods were viewed in Xew England, before 
Dr. Beecher left that country ; and if they were not evidence 
of that fact, then there was no such thing as evidence of any- 
thing. If he was to be prohibited from referring to such 
proofs, then he might give up at once all expectation of being 
allowed to argue the present question. 

Mr. Braixerd said, that if the letters were read as 
anonymous,, and were introduced merely as a part of Dr. 
"Wilson's argument, he had no objections to their being read. 

Dr. Beecher wished to know what the accuser intended 
to prove by these extracts. How did they bear on the 
matter in hand ? 

Dr. Wilsox replied, that he introduced them to prove 
that Dr. Beecher had not brought all that amount of capital 
into the West which he had alleged, and which he repre- 
sented Dr. Wilson as the instrument of curtailing. 

Dr. Beecher replied, he was perfectly willing that the 
extracts should be read : because he was not willing it should 
be supposed he was afraid of having this, or anything else 



118 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



that could be produced, read before the whole world; but 
he believed the admission of them to be wholly irregular. 
Neither Dr. Wilson nor himself was here to be tried on the 
point whether Dr. Beecher did or did not bring with him 
into the West the whole of the capital he had possessed in the 
East. What if he did? or what if he did not? The thing 
was wholly outre. Yet he desired Dr. Wilson might be 
indulged to read it : he must take the liberty, however, of 
saying that it was wholly irrelevant to the trial. 

The Moderator thought the reading had better be allowed t 
Dr. Beecher would have an opportunity of speaking of its 
irrelevancy when his defence was in order. 

Dr. Wilson replied, that he wished to introduce nothing 
irrelevant ; nor should he have ever thought of reading from 
this book, had not Dr. Beecher attempted to produce an im- 
pression to Dr. Wilson's disadvantage and his own elevation. 
The book seemed to be written not only with good judgment, 
but by a man who possessed a Christian spirit. In ani- 
madverting on a letter of Dr. Beecher to Dr. Woods, of An- 
dover, the author first quoted the words of the letter, and 
then used the following language in relation to it : 

Dr. Beecher " has had the deliberate opinion, for many years, derived 
from extensive observation, and a careful attention to the elementary 
principles of the various differences which have agitated the Church, that 
the ministers of the Orthodox Congregational Church, and the ministers of 
the Presbyterian Church, are all cordially united in every one of the 
doctrines of the Bible, and of the Confessions of Faith, which have been 
regarded and denominated fundamental." (See his second letter to Dr. 
Woods.) How much to be lamented is it that Dr. Beecher did not make 
this discovery in season, or that he did not seasonably feel its influence, to 
have saved unbroken the harmony of his native state, and the peace of the 
surrounding region ! For, whence came those charges of physical de- 
pravity, and physical regeneration, and of making God the author of 
sin, Which certainly did not arise without his knowledge, and which have 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



119 



grieved his brethren for years ? Whence came that labored effort, a few 
years since, to make a new creed or confession of faith for the state ? who 
introduced it to the General Association, or advised to that measure, to 
the grief and agitation of many minds, if, as Dr. Beecher supposes, we are 
all cordially agreed in every one of the doctrines of the Bible ? Again, Dr. 
Beecher " doubts not that we might so live as to leave the church in a 
blaze of controversy, which the generation to come might not live to see 
extinguished." And what, I ask, has prevented the blaze of controversy, 
for ten years past, but the forbearance of those who, though assailed on 
every side, have chosen to make almost any sacrifice for peace ? And what 
now prevents a blaze of controversy, that many generations will not see 
extinguished, unless those who adhere to the faith of their fathers are 
willing to see themselves, and what they esteem the truth, trampled in the 
dust? Let Dr. Beecher view the subject on all sides. But he has at 
length made the discovery that there is a great difference, in " the eye of 
Heaven, in the eye of man, and in omr own eye, on a death-bed, and on 
the record of eternity, between the appearance of a great pacification, or a 
great conflagration, achieved by our instrumentality." He is certainly to 
be congratulated on this discovery, and had he made it ten years ago the 
present agitations would not have been witnessed. But it is matter of joy 
that the discovery has been made, and it is devoutly to be hoped the effects 
will soon be visible. Let Dr. Beecher, then, use his influence to remove 
the present causes of irritation and suspicion. Let us have men at the 
head of our Theological Seminary in whom all the churches and ministers 
have confidence ; and thus give us back, as an united community, our 
college, our Christian Spectator, our candidates for the ministry, our 
revivals of religion, our harmonious associations, our united churches. 
But if this cannot be done, let not Dr. Beecher, or any other man, sup- 
pose that the Christian community will always be amused with mere 
sound, or that the cause of truth will be sacrificed to the interests or 
caprice of a few men. — pp. 32, 33. 

Another consideration is derived from the letters recently published by 
Dr. Beecher to Dr. Woods. These letters contain some pathetic remarks on 
the benefits of union, and the evils of alienation. But these remarks from 
Dr. Beecher come too late in the day, and they imply an incorrect view 
of the subject. They imply that the divisions and alienations are occa- 
sioned by the opponents of Dr. Taylor, whereas they are chargeable wholly 
to his friends and himself. It is presumed that some transactions, which 
took place ten years ago, are not now present to Dr Beecher's recollection. 



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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



The days and nights he has spent with Dr. Taylor, in maturing and bring- 
ing forward this very system, which makes all the disturbance, and the 
warnings they then received from an intimate friend, who was sometimes 
present, and who pointed out to them these very consequences, have proba- 
bly passed, in some degree, into oblivion. There is no doubt, that if Dr. 
Beecher would even now set himself to undo what by his countenance he 
has done in this matter, the breach would, in a great measure, be healed. 
But for him now to write letters on the benefits or duty of union, though 
very full of feeling, will not reach the case. Some example with precept 
is needful. And especially let him not attempt now to cast the odium of 
this separation on those who have done nothing to produce it, and who 
have, from the beginning, deprecated its existence ; those who have kept 
straight forward in the doctrines, in which they have always found conso- 
lation, and by which they would administer it to others. — pp. 43, 44. 

Dr. Wilson said, that after reading this he would only 
remark that the date here given corresponded exactly with 
the period mentioned by Dr. Seedier himself, in which he 
had been engaged in preaching and publishing the doctrines 
Jje now held. That period he stated to have been the last 
ten years ; and it was within just that period, according to 
this writer, that the troubles and disturbances of the churches 
of New England on the subject of the new Divinity had been 
experienced. This coincidence of date gave the more authen- 
ticity to the statements of the Edwardean. 

Dr. Wilson now proceeded to read from a printed " Letter 
to Dr. Beecher, on the Influence of his Ministry in Boston : 
by Rev. Asa Rand, Editor of the Volunteer;" as follows : 

The- object which I aim to accomplish is, either to elicit something from 
yourself or your friends which may remove injurious perplexities ; or, if 
these must remain on your part, to disabuse the public mind of prevailing 
misapprehensions, and so arrest or retard, if it may be, the progress of 
existing evils. I say disabuse the public mind ; for although there are 
many who probably understand and follow you, and many others who 
regard your course as inconsistent and erroneous, yet there are multitudes 



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121 



in our churches who do not, for lack of information, understand this sub- 
ject, even so far as it is intelligible to others. They have been accustomed 
to listen to you almost as to an oracle. They have heard from you and 
of vou things which startle them. But they hare heard of your disclaim- 
ers, and your abundant professions of orthodoxy ; and they dispose of their 
perplexities as they are able. Some stand in doubt of you ; but hope and 
believe all things. Others believe your professions, and impute your seem- 
ing vagaries to the eccentricities of your mind and the warmth of your 
preaching. — pp. 4, 5. I 
The novelties to which I refer in this letter are those which have been 
called "new Divinity," and "new measures." I mean the theology of 
the New Haven school, and the measures for converting sinners and pro- 
moting revivals, wMch have had their principal seat of operation in the 
State of New tori. It is no part of my object, — it would lead me too far 
out of the way, — to prove these principles and measures to be unscriptural, 
or even to show, at any considerable length, what they are. That they 
exist, iff, I believe, granted on every side. That their advocates believe 
them to be widely different from old principles and measures, and also to 
be exceedingly preferable to them, is manifest, from the fact that they con- 
tinually inculcate and extol the new, and expressly undervalue the old ; 
from the fact that they pertinaciously adhere to their alleged improve- 
ments, although they know they are unacceptable to a large portion of their 
brethren, and have excited animosities and divisions ; and from the fact 
that they seize every occasion to diffuse their principles, and to introduce 
men who preach them, at every open door. My complaint against you, sir, 
is, that you have acted fully with other leaders in this matter, but not with 
that open avowal of your object which was to be expected from. your gen- 
eral reputation for frankness, and from your Christian profession. 

Of this nevr scheme of doctrine, which I have said I cannot stay to 
exhibit at length, it is requisite I should giye a synopsis. Perhaps I can- 
not better characterize it, in a few words, than by saying that it resembles, 
in its prominent features and bearing, Wesley anism ; a strange mingling 
of evangelical doctrine with Arminian speculations ; a system, if such it 
may be called, which the orthodox of New England have long believed to 
be subversive of the Gospel, and tending to produce spurious conversions. 
It certainly has some variations from that system, however, which I need 
not point out. It professedly embraces the atonement, the Deity of Christ, 
the Trinity, the personality and offices of the Spirit, depravity, regenera- 
tion, justification, and the other doctrines of grace. Its distinctive feature 
VOL. III. 11 



122 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



is, that it abundantly inculcates human activity and ability in the affair of 
salvation ; even professing to resuscitate them from the dead, alleging that 
we have heretofore killed and buried them. Holding that sinners, though 
depraved, ha^sQ power to convert themselves, it proposes the minute and 
direct steps by which they may effect it, content with a general allusion, 
now and then, to the necessity of a Divine influence to aid and persuade 
them. — pp. 5, 6. 

Apparently induced by their wish to present the ability and obligation 
of sinners in the strongest light, and to convert them as fast as possible by 
every means, the preachers in question have renewed the attempt which 
has been a thousand times baffled before, — an attempt to make the hum- 
bling doctrines of the Gospel plain and acceptable to the carnal mind. 
Original sin is explained away. Adult depravity is resolved into a habit 
of sinning, and the various ruling passions ; white the deep, fixed, inherent 
aversion of the soul to God and all holiness is kept o\it of sigM. Elec- 
tion, the sovereignty of God, the special influence of the Spirit in renovat- 
ing the heart, are so explained that the " natural man " can understand 
them, and be reconciled to them besides. 

Yourself and the public will expect to \now my reasons for regarding 
you as connected with the New Haven school, and a leading advocate of 
their theology. I will now attempt to give them. 

1. Your preaching, together with your treatment of inquirers and con- 
verts. And, when I speak of this character of your sermons and addresses, 
I do not intend an occasional sentence or expression ; but the prevailing 
tone of sentiment, on frequent occasions, among your own people, to other 
congregations in the city, and at numerous opportunities abroad. 

I cannot, however, refer to chapter and verse, or quote your language 
verbatim. You have seldom put your new theology to the press, though 
you have published much on various topics. Whether the omission has 
been by design, or for imperative reasons, I know not. I must, therefore, 
resort to other sources of evidence. And I here premise that I do not 
affirm what you have preached, but what you have been understood to 
preach ; for the words of the oral preacher pass into the air, and cannot 
be remembered with perfect accuracy, and repeated with confidence. I only 
mean to say, that in New England the impression is strong and deep that 
you have fully preached among us the theology above described ; that, 
while Dr. Taylor and others have written, and reasoned, and philosophized, 
and mysticized, you have rendered the same system palpable and practical 
in your preaching and ministrations, subserving their cause far more 
effectually than they have done themselves. — pp. 8, 9. 



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123 



Dr. Wilson said he had marked other passages with the 
intent to read them, but would spare the time of the court, 
and lay the book on the table for reference. 

Now, he wished the Presbytery to recollect the object for 
which he had introduced and read these printed documents ; 
it was to show that whatever amount of capital Dr. Beecher 
might have attained, within the last ten years, it had been 
diminished, in no inconsiderable degree, before he had taken 
up his line of march for the West ; and, therefore, the loss 
was not chargeable to the opposition of Dr. Wilson. But, 
suppose all this proof be laid wholly out Of view, and suppose 
that Dr. Beecher is still in possession of the entire amount of 
fame which can be the result of a long life devoted to the pro- 
motion of what he believed the cause of truth and benevolence, 
was this to be pleaded in his favor here 1 Was he to be more 
exempt from the judgment of his peers than the humblest 
individual in society ? Dr. Wilson would say to the court, 
on this subject, " Look not upon his countenance, nor upon 
the height of his intellectual stature.' 5 You are to "know 
no man after the flesh." His talents, fame, and even his 
usefulness, ought not to be remembered, when you cast your 
eye upon the charges now before you. The inquiries sub- 
mitted to you are plain and important. Has he published 
and preached prominent and radical errors ] What methods 
has he taken to propagate and render them popular in the 

Presbvterian Church ? 
%/ 

8. A third obstacle, said Dr. Wilson, presented in the way 
of a just decision in this case, is Dr. Greene's review of Dr. 
Beecher's sermon on "The Faith once delivered to the 
Saints.'' Extracts from this review were read before this 
court at its last meeting to prove — what ? — to prove that if 
the specifications made under these charges be all true, they 



124 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



form no proper ground of complaint ! Now, I should not 
have referred to this sermon, or to Dr. Greene's review of it, 
had they not been brought before you by Dr. Beecher him- 
self. I confess that all my knowledge of the sermon is from 
the author's own statement, from Dr. Greene's review of it, 
and from the review in the Christian Examiner, together with 
Dr. Beecher' s answer in the Christian Spectator. Thus, I 
get a knowledge of sermons I never read. But I would ask, 
Is Dr. Greene to be quoted as good authority against the 
standards of the Presbyterian Church ? Dr. Greene, it is said, 
pronounced Dr. Beecher a Calvinist. Permit me, Sir, to dis- 
abuse your minds on this subject. Dr. Beecher did not call 
his own sentiments Calvinistic. He called his sermon "a 
select system"— held by no man nor denomination, so as to 
render it proper to call it by the name of any man or any 
sect ; and he says that some of almost every denomination 
hold it, and some reject it. Dr. Greene gives the same 
account of Dr. Beecher's " select system." He says that 
Calvinists, in the most proper sense of the term, would except 
to some of the articles of this system ; and a great many who 
would by no means consent to be denominated Calvinists 
would only consider Dr. Beecher as holding the evangelical 
system substa?itially. Well, indeed, did Dr. Greene say 
that strict and proper Calvinists would except to some of Dr. 
Beecher's articles of faith. Look, Sir, at the following : — 
"Men are in the possession of such faculties, and placed in 
such circumstances, as render it practicable for them to do 
whatever God requires." This is an article in Dr. Beecher's 
"select system" to which no true Calvinist, and but few 
Arminians, can subscribe ; for, while it directly contradicts the 
Calvinistic creed on the one hand, on the other it asserts an 
ability in fallen man which intelligent Arminians deny. In- 



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125 



deed, Sir, no man can assert such an ability in fallen man, 
— much less can he make it the foundation of divine govern- 
ment, — without being deeply imbued with the Pelagian heresy, 
and making a display of his entire ignorance of the true doc- 
trines of the Fall. 

In reference to the Atonement, Dr. Beecher states that 
God can maintain the influence of his law, and forgive sin, on 
the condition of repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ ; and, that a compliance with these conditions is 
practicable, in the regular exercise of the powers and faculties 
given to man as an accountable creature. [See Christian 
Advocate, vol. IL, pp. 31, 82J Every man who understands 
the Socinian controversy knows that these are precisely the 
sentiments of Unitarians. Did Dr. Greene say that Dr. 
Beecher was a Calvinist ? No. What Dr. Greene attempts 
to show is, that Dr. Beecher's " select system" contains 
sentiments to which no strict Calvinist, no strict Arminian, 
can subscribe; and this is precisely what Dr. Beecher himself 
asserted of this select system. His words are these : " It is 
a select system, which some of almost every denomination 
hold, and some reject." And he calls it evangelical, to pre- 
vent circumlocution. Now. I claim the right of calling this 
u select system " by a more appropriate name. And, as Dr. 
Beecher is extremely anxious to be considered a Calvinist, I 
will call his select system Liberal Calvinism ; and I will 
adopt the language of Dr. Greene, and say, "the peculiar 
sentiments of the class of Calvinists to which Dr. Beecher 
belongs are also apparent in other parts of this discourse." 
And what is liberal Calvinism 7 According to Huntington 
(I do not mean Huntington of London, nor Huntington ;n 
Boston, formerly in the Old South church ; but Huntington 
the author of Calvinism Improved), in his book, entitled Cal- 

vol. in. 11* 



126 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



vinism Improved ; liberal Calvinism is Universal Salvation. 
According to Dr. Taylor and Professor Fitch ; liberal Calvin- 
ism is the adoption of a Calvinistic creed "for substance of 
doctrine." admitting the primary propositions, and rejecting 
the secondary as unwarranted and obsolete explanations. 
According to others, liberal Calvinism is the stepping-stone to 
Pelagian perfection. In my opinion, liberal Calvinism is that 
select system now called in the Presbyterian Church New- 
Schoolism. What did liberal Calvinism do in Scotland ? It 
produced the moderate party, against which Dr. Witherspoon 
wrote his celebrated 11 Characteristics." What did liberal 
Calvinism do in England 1 It placed a Unitarian in the 
% very pulpit once occupied by the venerable Matthew Henry. 
What did liberal Calvinism do in Geneva ? It placed a Neo- 
logian in the very seat of Calvin. What has liberal Calvin- 
ism done in America? It has undermined and almost 
annihilated the Saybrook Platform in New England ; it has 
divided, distracted, and almost ruined, the Presbyterian Church, 
under the care of the General Assembly ; it has exalted unto 
high places men whose talents and opinions are inimical to 
the dearest interests of truth ; it has palmed upon the East 
and West and South such talented and liberal spirits as Dun- 
can, and Flint, and Clapp ! And does Dr. Beecher consider 
it applause to be called a liberal Calvinist ? Yes. Sir ; in this 
he glories. And, in language which cannot be mistaken, he 
declares that nothing has done more to eclipse the Sun of 
Righteousness than "old dead orthodoxy." He tells you 
that, as a Congregationalist in New England, his creed was the 
Assembly's Shorter Catechism, and the Saybrook Platform ; 
that, as a Presbyterian, his creed is our Confession of Faith ; 
and, at the same time, he declares that there is nothing in 
these charges, on the subject of erroneous doctrine, but what 



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127 



he has preached and published, from ten to twenty years, in 
his " select system," which some of all sorts believe, and 
some of all sorts reject. , And what does he desire you to 
infer from all this 7 That his sentiments are in accordance 
with the standards of the church, at least, "for substance of 
doctrine;" or, if there be "'shades of difference," they have 
been so long, so perseveringly and extensively propagated, 
that there is now no just cause of complaint; as if, when a 
man is arraigned for sapping the foundation of civil society, 
and introducing misrule in all the states, he should plead in 
bar of the prosecution, or in mitigation of his offence, that, as 
he had been engaged in the project of a select system from 
ten to twenty years, no one now had any right to complain ! 
But, suppose Dr. Greene, in 1824, delighted with the ability 
with which Dr. Beecher defended or sustained the doctrine of 
the Trinity, had, in kindness and courtesy, overlooked the 
errors of the "select system," and pronounced Dr. Beecher a 
Calvinist in so many words; what weight ought such a 
declaration to have with you, on a trial held eleven years 
afterwards ? It ought, Sir, to be with you less than the dust 
of the balance. Gould Dr. Greene possibly have foreseen 
what evils would result from this "select system" in ten 
years ? And can any man now see the amount of mischief 
which this "select system" will produce in ten years more, 
if the desolating tide is not rolled back ? 

4. A fourth obstacle in the way of a just decision is the 
claim that is set up on the subject of interpretation. Let 
us see what this claim of interpretation is. I quote from 
Dr. Beecher s work, entitled "The Causes and Remedy 
of Scepticism." — Vide vol. i. page 65. 

With these remarks in view, I proceed to observe that the creeds of the 
Reformation are also made often the occasion of perplexity and doubt to 



128 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

inexperienced minds. * * They were constructed amidst the most 
arduous controversy that ever taxed the energies of man, and with the eye 
fixed upon the errors of the day, and on the points around which the battle 
chiefly raged. On some topics they are more full than the proportion of the 
faith now demands ; some of their phraseology also, once familiar, would 
now, without explanation, inculcate sentiments which are not Scriptural, 
which the framers did not believe, and the creeds were never intended to 
teach. * * * 

Of course, they appear rather as insulated, independent, abstract propo- 
sitions, than as the symmetrical parts and proportions of a beautiful and 
glorious system of divine legislation, for maintaining the laws and protect- 
ing the rights of the universe, while the alienated are reconciled and the 
guilty are pardoned ; and though, as abstract truths correctly expounded 
according to the intention of the framers, they unquestionably inculcate the 
system of doctrines contained in the Holy Scriptures ; and though, as land- 
marks and boundaries between truth and error, they are truly important ; 
yet, as the means for the popular exposition and the saving application of 
truth, they are far short of the exigencies of the day in which we live, — 
mere skeletons of truth, compared with the^system clothed, and beautified, 
and inspired with life, as it exists and operates in the Word of God. Un- 
happily, also, some of the most important truths they inculcate are, in their 
exposition, so twisted in with the reigning philosophy of the day, as to be in 
the popular apprehension identified with it ; and are made odious and repel- 
lant by its errors, as if these philosophical theories were the fundamental 
doctrines of the Bible. There is no end to the mischief which false philos- 
ophy, employed in the exposition and defence of the doctrines of the 
Reformation, has in this manner accomplished. Good men have con- 
tended for theories as if they were vital to the system, and regarded as 
heretical those who received the doctrine of the Bible, and only rejected 
their philosophy. 

* * * * * * * 

It is my deliberate opinion that the false philosophy which has been 
employed for the exposition of the Calvinistic system, has done more to 
obstruct the march of Christianity, and to paralyze the saving power of the 
Gospel, and to raise up and organize around the Church the unnumbered 
multitude to behold and wonder, and despise and perish, than all other 
causes beside. * * * 

The points to which I allude, as violated by a false philosophy, are the 
principles of personal identity, — by which the posterity of Adam are dis- 
tinct from, and not to be confounded with, their ancestor; the principles of 



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129 



personal accountability and desert of punishment, that men are not made 
accountable and punishable for the conduct of Adam, though liable to sin 
and misery, as its universal consequence ; the nature of sin and holiness, 
considered not as material qualities or the substance of the soul, or as in- 
stincts, but as the spontaneous action of mind under moral government, 
in the full possession of all the elements of accountability ; and, above all, 
the doctrines of the decree of God, and the universal certainty of all events 
to his foreknowledge. To which maybe added the nature of the atonement 
and its extent, and the doctrines of election and reprobation, as they shine 
in the Bible, and not through the medium of a perverting philosophy. 

Whatever of these philosophical theories appertained to the system dur- 
ing the arduous conflict for civil and religious liberty against the papal 
despotism of modern Europe, men endured, — even swallowed them unhes- 
itatingly, almost unthinkingly, in the presence of a greater evil ; but since 
the conflict has passed away, and the nature of mind and moral govern- 
ment is better understood, and the numbers who think and will think for 
themselves multiply, the repugnance to this false philosophy has steadily 
increased, and will increase, till that which is adventitious and false is 
relinquished, and the truth is preached in its purity and unbroken power. 
— Vide vol. i., pp. 67, 68. 

It seems that the principle of interpretation is claimed ; 
and that all things which Dr. Beecher conceives to have 
been either twisted in or left out where the Confession is too 
fall or too empty, and where it will not in his judgment, 
produce those effects which popular preaching was designed 
to acomplish. must be stricken out or explained away. To 
show to what errors the interpretation of a creed may lead. 
I Trill quote a few passages from Edwardean. 

It is unusual, in creeds or confessions of faith, to adopt terms so ambigu- 
ous as to require an explanation longer than the confession itself. The 
confessions of faith used in our churches are not thus dubious ; but are 
sufficiently explicit for all the purposes of a confession of faith, without a 
word of explanation. The above mystery has hitherto remained ; and its 
solution is a matter of no small difficulty, because it leads into the region 
of motives and intentions, with which no stranger can intermeddle to 
advantage or with propriety. But such is the fact, whatever may have 



130 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



been the motive. The creed in general uses the common and established 
language of the Calvinistic faith ; and the notes so vary the meaning of 
the terms as to give the creed a different aspect from that in which this 
language commonly appears. Taking the creed and the notes in connec- 
tion, they neutralize each other, so that the whole presents Dr. Taylor as 
believing nothing at all. In one he says he believes a certain doctrine, in 
the other he denies it. Or, taking the notes as the explanation of the creed, 
and Dr. Taylor is exhibited as sailing under false colors, so far as the creed 
is to be considered his flag. For it seems to mean one thing, and really 
means another. These views are given hypothetically, and from the 
external aspects of the transaction, for with the motives I have no con- 
cern. To obtain a full view of this mysterious circumstance, it may be 
expedient to compare some of the articles of this creed with the note 
appended. 

The second article reads thus : " I believe that the eternal purposes of 
God extend to all actual events, sin not excepted ; or that God foreordains 
whatsoever comes to pass, and so executes these purposes as to leave the 
free moral agency of man unimpaired." This language, in its common 
acceptation, — and the meaning has long been settled by uniform usage, — 
must be considered as a full confession of the independent government of 
God. On turning to the notes, we find the following explanation : " But 
I do not believe that sin can be proved to be the necessary means of the 
greatest good, and that as such God prefers it to holiness in its stead. 
But I do believe that holiness, as the means of good, may be better than 
sin, and that it may be true that God, all things considered, prefers holi- 
ness to sin, in all instances in which the latter takes place." In the creed 
he says he believes that the purposes of God extend to all events, sin not 
excepted ; and that God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass : but in the 
notes he says he does not believe it can be proved that God prefers sin to 
holiness, as the means of good, or that he did not even prefer directly the 
contrary. Here, one of two things must be true : either Dr. Taylor believes 
that God purposed and foreordained what he did not prefer, but the con- 
trary of which he chose ; or he (Dr. Taylor) believes what he does not 
believe can be proved, or the contrary of which may be true. But why 
this ambiguity ? If Dr. Taylor believes as he says he does in the note, 
why not say so in his creed, and put the matter at rest ? Why this broad, 
fall, unqualified confession of divine supremacy in the second article ; and 
then this mysterious explanation, which leaves the subject of his faith 
utterly inexplicable ? 



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181 



In the third article, we find the following confession: "I believe that 
all mankind, in consequence of the fall of Adam, are born destitute of holi- 
ness, and are by nature totally depraved." No one can ask for a more 
full confession of the original and entire depravity of man than this lan- 
guage, according to long-established usage, conveys. No one, on reading 
this, would hesitate a moment to pronounce Dr. Taylor orthodox on this 
point. But what says the appendix ? " But I do believe that by the wise 
and holy constitution of God, all mankind, in consequence of Adam's sin, 
became sinners by their own act." — pp, 6, 7. 

When we say that all mankind are born destitute of holiness, have we 
been understood to mean that they were born destitute of moral character, 
neither holy nor sinful, but in the same moral condition with young 
animals ? But this must be Dr. Taylor's meaning, according to his own 
explanation. He believes that men become sinners by their own act, and 
that an act of self-preference. Consequently, to be born destitute of holi- 
ness does not mean to be born sinful, because men must themselves put 
forth an act of self-preference before they are sinners. If this is Dr. 
Taylor's sentiment, why did he not say so at first ? It was just as easy to 
have said, in his third article, I believe that all mankind are born destitute 
of any moral character, in the same moral condition with young animals. 
This would have been explicit, and have saved all note and comment. 
Again, when we say that all mankind are by nature totally depraved, what 
has been the universally received meaning, but that men are from their 
birth, as derived from Adam, possessed of a sinful propensity, that is in 
itself a sufficient ground of their condemnation ? There can be no question 
that such has been always the import of this language. And, without his 
notes, no one would have any doubt that Dr. Taylor meant to be under- 
stood in this sense. But no such thing. Nothing is further from his 
mind. He means something totally diverse, namely, that the physical 
nature of man is such, that, under the influence of circumstances, he will 
sin. If this, then, is his meaning, why not say so, — why this play upon 
words, — this putting on a borrowed dress, when his ideas might have 
been just as easily clothed in appropriate and intelligible language ? — 
p. 8. 

You will probably, by this time, perceive the mystery to which I refer. 
It Is, that Dr. Taylor should thus adopt the decided language of Calvinism 
in his creed, and explain it another way in his notes. No one questions 
his right to be an Arminian, or Pelagian, if he chooses ; no one wishes to 
vex him in the free enjoyment of his rights of conscience. But that he 



132 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



may sail under a false flag, or that he may use the terms of a particular 
creed to mean directly the opposite of the common acceptation, is seriously 
questionable. — p. 10. 

But, it will be said, probably, that the difference is not respecting the 
doctrines themselves, but merely about the philosophy of these doctrines, 
or the theory of explanation. And we shall be told that men may per- 
fectly agree in the facts of religion, and yet differ greatly in the theory of 
explanation. This may, indeed, be true in some respects, and to some 
extent ; but, when indiscriminately applied, it contains a dangerous 
sophism, which will subvert every doctrine of the Bible. Take, for ex- 
ample, the case which has been mentioned, if I mistake not, by the author 
of Views in Theology, of Christ's casting out devils. This fact was 
admitted equally by the Jews and the disciples. But they differed in their 
theory of explanation. The Jews said that he cast out devils by Beelzebub, 
and the disciples believed that he cast them out by the finger of God. Was 
there no essential difference ? Could the believers in these different theories 
hold each other in fellowship ? What concord hath Christ with Belial ? 
Again, some men agree in the fact that sinners must experience a moral 
change, of some sort, to be saved. But one^believes that the change is to be 
effected by his own desperate efforts, by his changing his own purpose, and 
transferring his affections from the world to God, under the influence of 
truth presented by the Holy Spirit. Another believes that this change is a 
mere external reformation, and passing from the world into the church. 
Another believes that it is a new creation wrought in the heart by the 
special and mighty power of God. If you ask either of these men whet2ier 
he believes in the doctrine of regeneration, he will say, " yes, certainly." 
But is there no essential difference in their belief, — will no different 
results proceed from it, — and can they consistently hold each other in 
fellowship? The fallacy of this argument consists in assuming that 
agreement in a term or name is agreement in a fact, or that agreement in 
some parts of a statement is agreement in the whole. It assumes that 
those who have the terms regeneration, total depravity or special grace, in 
their creeds, are agreed in the main facts of religion. But far otherwise is 
the truth. Difference in the theory of explanation in many cases may 
involve the vital principles of religion. This is true of the doctrine of free 
grace, of the justification of men by faith alone, and of the doctrine of the 
final perseverance of believers. These doctrines, though admitted as to the 
facts, may be so explained as to involve the subversion of all moral obliga- 
tion, and the admission of rank Antinomianism. And will this make no 



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difference in the result ? Ought it to be no ground of separation ? You 
see, then, that no confidence can be placed in this new theological alchemy, 
— this philosopher's stone, which is expected to turn every jarring creed 
into real gold. This, if adopted, will produce Catholicism to the full. For 
no heresiarch on earth will refuse to adopt an orthodox creed, if you will 
allow him to put his own meaning to it, and to explain it in his own way. 

For these reasons I have no confidence in the plea which is urged by Br. 
Beecher in his letter to Dr. Woods, and which has been so often urged 
from other quarters. The truth is, we regard the points in debate as 
essential to the Christian system, and that the manner of explaining them 
which has been adopted is opening the flood-gates of heresy and infidelity. 
We cannot, then, in conscience, assent to these speculations, even by our 
silence. We must, as in duty bound, — for so the Scriptures expressly 
enjoin in such cases, — bear testimony against these errors. — pp. 22, 23. 

I did, indeed, understand him to say, at one time, that he 
only claimed the right of interpreting these passages of the 
Confession as the Church herself had interpreted them ; but 
here I remark that the Church, as a Church, never has given 
any interpretation of her standards ; and for this obvious 
reason, that, when once her principles have been settled and 
thrown into the form of a Confession, all interpretation is at 
an end, until she decides to review and alter her creed. The 
faith she holds stands there in her Confession ; which Confes- 
sion is to be received in the obvious sense of its words, and all 
who become ministers and rulers in her connection are 
required to receive that Confession ex animo, without explan- 
ation. To prove this, I might refer to every adjudicated 
case on the records of the General Assembly. That body 
never attempt to give any interpretation of the Church's 
standards, but simply proceed to compare the language and 
conduct of individuals therewith. The standards are con- 
sidered by her as a straight rule, but interpretation can only 
be required when the straight rule is to be bent so as to 
make it coincide with every curve or right angle to which it 

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134 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



is applied. Instead of this, the curves and the right angles 
should be brought alongside the straight rule, and then the 
discrepancy will at once be obvious to all. 

Dr. Beecher, in his sermon, with a view to prove its 
orthodoxy, refers to certain authorities ; which references are 
made, both in the body of the discourse itself, and in the notes. 
These authorities consist either of what are called by some, 
standard writers, or standard adjudications. There is, how- 
ever, but one adjudication mentioned, and that is by the 
Synod of Dort. It will, however, no doubt, be pleaded, that 
we are to regard standard writers as interpreters of the Con- 
fession of Faith, and that we are at liberty to refer to them 
as showing what was the real meaning of its framers. But, 
in all the references contained in Dr. Beecher' s book, there 
is but one solitary allusion to the ^Confession of Faith, and 
but a single quotation from any Presbyterian minister. 
Why this long array of names ? Why are we told of Justin 
Martyr, of Origen, of Cyprian, of Jerome, of Bernard and 
the Synod of Dort 3 Why are we referred to Calvin, and 
Bellamy, and Hopkins, and Smalley, and West, and Strong, 
and Dwight. neither of whom ever adopted our standards, or 
preached or published in conformity with them 1 Unhappily, 
one Presbyterian minister, and that as sound a man and as 

ripe a scholar as is to be found in any age, I mean Dr. 

Witherspoon,— and he in but one single sentence in all his 
works, has varied a hair's breadth from the standard he 
acknowledged ; and that single sentence has been seized upon 
Avith avidity. 

But the appeal is made also to our theological seminaries. 
We are, it seems, to interpret our standards, not only 
according to Justin Martyr, and Origen, and Cyprian, and 
Bernard, but according to the interpretation put upon them 



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by our seminaries. And why are these quoted? It is 
according to the old fashion, which prevailed before the Con- 
fession of Faith was ever framed, and continued to prevail 
long afterward. It was the fashion of the day to refer theo- 
logical questions to the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and 
.nobody knows how many more ; and what they decided, that 
was to be the interpretation. Well, let it be so, if it can be ; 
but I will show you something about our seminaries. What 
does Prof. Stuart hold ? He is a professor of high standing 
in a seminary where multitudes of our young men receive 
their preparation for the Christian ministry ; and I have not 
heard any one, who came from thence, that did not say that 
both Prof. Stuart and Dr. Woods advised them to adopt the 
Confession of Faith ; and yet, what were the sentiments 
which Prof. Stuart publicly preached and afterwards pub- 
lished, in reference to Confessions 1 I will quote a passage 
or two from a sermon preached by him at the dedication of 
Hanover-street church, Boston, in 1826. 

What, then, are the peculiarities "which distinguish them, and which 
render it proper to say of them that they meet in the name of Christ, or 
on account of him ? A very interesting and a very delicate question ; one 
which, however, my text leads me to make an attempt briefly to answer. 
If I am not fully, I am at least in some good measure, aware of the respons- 
ibility and difficulty of the case. But I am not going to dogmatize. I 
shall appeal to no councils, no fathers, no creeds, no catechisms, no works 
of the schoolmen, no labors of acute and metaphysical divines, — in a word, 
to no human system whatever. All, all of these are made by frail, erring 
men. They are not of any binding authority, and we have a warrant that 
is sufficient, not to receive them, or any of them, as possessing such 
authority. I advert to the warning of our Saviour, which bids us call no 
man master upon earth ; for there is one who is our Master thai dwelleth 
in heaven. — pp. 12, 13. 

Now, what is the testimony here? (And Dr. Beecher 



136 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



adopted the same sentiment.) I object not to the language, 
but to the application of it. Faithful adherence to a creed, 
after* we have once adopted it, is calling no man master. 
Professor Stuart says : 

Another peculiar trait of Christians, as drawn in the New Testament, is, 
that they render religious homage to the Saviour. 

On this topic, as well as on others, I stand not in this sacred place to 
descant as a polemic. With human creeds or subtleties, or school distinc- 
tions and speculations, I have at present nothing to do. Creeds judiciously 
composed, supported by Scripture, and embracing essential doctrines only, 
are useful as a symbol of common faith among churches. But they are not 
the basis of a Protestant's belief ; nor should they be regarded as the 
vouchers for it. ■ — pp. 24, 25. 

So much for the authority of this seminary. 

But now let us go to another seminary, and hear what 
language it holds. I quote from a book entitled, A A Plea 
for United Christian Action," by R. H. Bishop, D.D. 

To what an extent diversity of opinion as to doctrines exists among the 
ministers of the Presbyterian Church of the present generation, very few, 
I am persuaded, are prepared to say with any degree of exactness. But 
were we to compare the present state of opinion with what is known to 
have been the state of opinion among the divines of a former generation, 
who are now admitted to have been orthodox, the result likely would be, 
that we are not more divided on any of the leading doctrines of the West- 
minster Confession of Faith than the fathers of that age themselves were. 
Baxter and Owen, for instance, are readily appealed to by almost every 
minister of the Presbyterian Church, as standards of correct theological 
opinion ; and yet, these men have given very different explanations of 
some of the most important doctrines of the Westminster Confession, and 
neither of these men went in all things with the assembly. Nor have we 
any reason to believe that the divines of the assembly themselves, in their 
final vote upon the most of the articles in the Confession, were agreed upon 
any other principle than the principle of compromise. An approximation 
towards unity of opinion, as the best modes of expressing our individual 



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-views of divine truth, is all that ever can be obtained in our adherence to a 
public creed. — p. 18. 

If this be true, we must forever live in disobedience to that 
command of the Bible which enjoins all Christians to " speak 
the same things." 

And now, Sir, as part of my argument, I beg leave to read 
some passages of my reply to Dr. Bishop. 

Has Dr. Bishop yet to learn that the Assembly of Divines did not meet 
of their own accord ; that they were permitted to discuss no subject but 
what was proposed to them by Parliament ; that they were carefully 
watched by lords and commons, to see that they did not transcend their 
commission ; that they sat long, and carefully investigated every subject 
committed to their consideration ; that when they gave 4 8 their final vote ' ' 
upon each article, they gave that vote upon principle, and not upon com- 
jjromise ; that they were all at liberty, when their labors were ended, and 
the assembly was dissolved, to adopt the Confession of Faith, catechisms 
and government, or not, as they pleased ; and that Owen, and Baxter, and 
Usher, and many others, never adopted the standards of the Presbyterian 
Church ? Why, Sir, do you amuse yourself and deceive your hearers by 
illustrations drawn from the theological differences of such men ? 

To show that there was no compromise in the votes of the Assembly of 
Divines, I need only cite one or two cases. The assembly were unani- 
mously of opinion that 4 4 baptism is rightly administered by pouring or 
sprinkling water upon the person." But some members thought that 
dipping or immersion ought to be allowed as 44 a mode of baptism." On 
this subject the assembly were divided, and the moderator gave the casting 
vote against immersion. They all agreed that 44 pouring or sprinkling " 
was right. But twenty-four out of forty-nine thought immersion might be 
allowed as 44 a mode of baptism." When they were so equally divided upon 
44 a mode" of external ordinance, and no compromise could be had, and 
when the majority inserted in the book that 44 dipping the person in water 
is not necessary," but that 44 baptism as ordained by Christ is the washing 
with water by sprinkling or pouring water upon the person, in the name 
of the Father, &c," can any sober-minded man believe they would coir- 
prom ise the essential truths of salvation ? 

Take another case. The Assembly of Divines, of Westminster, was, at 
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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



first, composed of Episcopalians, Erastians, Independents and Presbyteri- 
ans. I know not that any of the Anabaptists, Neonomians, or Antino- 
mians, were members. The Parliament sent an order " that the Assembly 
of Divines and others should forthwith confer, and treat among them- 
selves, of such a discipline and government as may be most agreeable to 
God's Holy Word, and to deliver their advice touching the same, to both 
houses of Parliament, with all convenient speed." A plan was proposed, in 
order to unite all parties, namely, that every bishop should be independent, 
and that synods and councils should be for concord, and not for government. 
Archbishop Usher was agreed to this plan. But no compromise could be 
obtained. The Presbyterian form of church government was adopted. I 
find no case of compromise, but in regard to the Solemn League and 
Covenant. The Scots' commissioners were instructed " to promote the 
extirpation of popery, prelacy, heresy, schisms, scepticism and idolatry, and 
to endeavor an union between the two kingdoms, in one confession of faith, 
one form of church government, and one directory of worship." 

The solemn league and covenant was to pave the way for all this, and 
was to be considered the safeguard of religion and liberty. This league 
was adopted in Scotland, none opposing it fyut the king's commissioners. 
When it was presented to the two houses of Parliament, they referred it to 
the Assembly of Divines, where it met with opposition. 

" Dr. Featly declared he durst not abjure prelacy absolutely, because 
he had sworn to obey his bishop in all things lawful and honest ; and there- 
fore proposed to qualify the second article thus : « I will endeavor the ex- 
tirpation of popery, and all anti-Christian, tyrannical, or independent 
prelacy ; ' but it was carried against him. Dr. Burgess objected to several 
articles, and was not without some difficulty persuaded to subscribe, after 
he had been suspended." This looks very much like the days of com- 
promise, does it not ? Yet, there was a compromise. Mr. Gataker and 
many others declared for primitive episcopacy, or for one stated president, 
with his presbyters to govern every church, and refused to subscribe till a 
parenthesis was inserted, declaring what sort of prelacy was to be abjured 

The Scots, who had been introduced into the assembly, were for abjur- 
ing episcopacy as simply unlawful; but the English divines were generally 
against it. The English pressed chiefly for a civil league, but the Scots 
would have a religious one, to which the English were obliged to yield, 
taking care, at the same time, to leave a door open for a latitude of inter- 
pretation. Here was a compromise. And what was the door of " latitude 
of interpretation " ? It was this : The English inserted the phrase " of 



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139 



reforming according to the Word of God ;" by which they thought them- 
selves secure from the inroads of Presbytery. The Scots inserted the 
words " according to the practice of the best reformed churches," in which 
they were confident their discipline must be included. Here was a com- 
promise from necessity. The English were obliged to adopt a religious 
league and covenant, or not obtain the assistance of the Scots in a war 
which they were carrying on in defence of civil and religious liberty. As 
your reading is much more extensive and minute than mine, I beg you to 
point out the instances where compromises were made, and a latitude of 
interpretation allowed on points of doctrine. I believe it will be a difficult 
task for you, or any member of the New School, to do this. And if this be 
not done, I hope to hear no more about compromising the truths of God. 
— pp. 9, 10. 

What I wish to impress upon the mind of every member 
of this court is, that it is out of place to quote the opinions 
of men as standard writers, and interpret the Confession of 
Faith by them. The opinions of men, on the contrary, must 
conform to the standard as to a straight line. Still more 
absurd is it to quote men who never adopted our standards at 
all. Yet Dr. Bishop refers us to Baxter and Owen, who 
gave " very different explanations of some of the most im- 
portant doctrines of the Westminster Confession," as Dr. 
Bishop affirms. What have these different explanations to do 
with the Confession of Faith ? If men do not adopt the Con- 
fession, it is obvious their opinions have nothing to do with 
it ; and if they do adopt it, and then give opinions different 
from it, their creed should be brought up, proposition by 
proposition, line by line^word by word, to the straight line, 
that their crooks and turnings may be discovered. I will 
here state but one case in illustration. I published a sermon 
on Imputation. When its orthodoxy was questioned, I 
wanted my sermon laid side by side with the Confession of 
Faith. The editor of the New York Evangelist reviewed 



140 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



that sermon ; and, in the course of his review, what does he 
say? That Dr. Woods advised his pupils, if they should 
change their theological views, still to retain the same lan- 
guage. But that editor himself, with more honesty, denies 
both language and thing. If he has falsified Dr. Woods, he 
alone is responsible for it. 

[Professor Biggs inquired for the copy of the Evangelist 
to which Dr. Wilson referred. But the doctor replied that 
he had had only a borrowed copy, which was not now in his 
possession.] 

The editor of the Evangelist says that he agrees with 
me, and I with him, as to the sense of the standards ; but that 
I, and all who hold in sentiment with me, are absurd. 
Now, I think that the editor is quite as orthodox as those 
who, while they contradict the doctrine of the standard, still 
retain its language ; and, while he is equally orthodox, he 
is a little more honest. Yes, sir, I love that man, though I 
hate his errors ; I love him for his frankness, and for his 
honesty. He comes plump up to the mark, and speaks out 
what he means. 

To sum up what I have to say on this subject, I deny 
the justice of this claim of interpretation, for the following 
reasons : 

(1.) Because, when a Confession of Faith is settled, inter- 
pretation is at an end ; until it becomes unsettled, and a reso- 
lution is formed to reconsider and alter it. 

(2.) Because no one is compelled to adopt the Confession 
of Faith ; and those who do are bound to adopt it in its 
obvious, unexplained sense. 

(3.) Where the right of interpretation is claimed and ex- 
ercised, it introduces endless disputes ; and men will use an 



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141 



orthodox language, and still teach error by explaining away 
the language they use. 

(4.) The judicatories of the Church, in giving decisions 
upon erroneous opinions, never explain the standards, but 
simply compare the language of which complaint is made 
with the language of the book. All the decided cases have 
brought alleged error by the side of the standards in their 
obvious language. Witness the decisions in the cases of 
Baleh. Davis. Stone. Craighead, and the Cumberland Pres- 
byterians. The compromise was adopted only in the case of 
Barnes. 

You sit here as judges and jurors. As jurors, you decide 
the facts : as judges, you compare the facts with the law in 
its obvious meaning, — that is, as unexplained. 

5. Duty compels me to notice a fifth obstacle to a right 
decision in this case : and which is found in the real condition 
of this court. I feel, Sir, that I am speaking on a delicate 
subject. I hope I shall speak so as not to give offence. 

[Mr. Rankin here interposed, and inquired whether it 
was in order for Dr. Wilson to impugn the integrity of the 
Presbytery. 

The Moderator replied that it would not be in order, but 
advised Mr. Rankin to wait until he heard what Dr. Wilson 
had to say.] 

Dr. Wilson said that he had no wish to impugn the 
motives of any man. But it was known that, at this time, and 
ever since Dr. Beecher had been received into the Presby- 
tery, there was a large majority of its members who coincided 
with him in his theological views. While some, with pain 
and with great reluctance, but for conscience' sake, are con- 
strained to oppose them : others have taken him by the hand, 
circulated his sermons, praised his works, and held him up as 



142 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the first theologian of his day. Could it be supposed or ex- 
pected that brethren in such a situation would be willing to 
bring up Dr. Beecher to the standards of the Church, and try 
him and his works by that rule 1 In condemning him, must 
they not condemn themselves ? And was it to be expected 
that they should be willing to commit suicide 3 

[Mr. Rankin again interposed, and declared that such 
language was wholly inadmissible. 

Dr. Beecher said that he wished Dr. Wilson to be per- 
mitted to say all he had to say on that topic] 

Dr. Wilson replied that he was done ; he had nothing 
more to say respecting it. 

6. A sixth obstacle is found in the fact that many 
orthodox and excellent sentiments had been preached and 
published by Dr. Beecher. All Jbhis he most freely and 
cheerfully admitted. But, said he, the question is, when we 
find orthodox sentiments contained in a certain book, but 
also find thrown in and linked in, and (to use an expres- 
sion of Dr. Beecher' s) " twisted in," with these orthodox 
sentiments, a set of most heretical and pernicious opinions, 
what is it but a concealing of poison amidst wholesome 
aliment ? Is not the poison the more dangerous, from the 
inviting food with which it is surrounded? And can anything 
be worse than the practice of such artifice? Sir, on this 
subject let me show you a book. It is entitled " The Gospel 
Plan," by Wm. C. Davis; and in this book may be found 
some of the finest possible passages, both as to the eloquence 
of the language and the soundness and orthodoxy of the sen- 
timents they convey. There is a great deal of such senti- 
ment, and presented in the ablest and most convincing 
manner. In fact, the greater part of the book is of this 
character. Yet this book contains the most pernicious 



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143 



heresy. And where is the poison to be found ? In com- 
paratively but a few pages, though in a covert manner it is 
wrought into many more. And what was the fate of ffm. 
C. Davis ? He was convicted of heresy, and suspended from 
the ministry. But did the Presbytery which tried him 
read this whole work of six hundred pages on his trial, in 
order to find out the error ] No, Sir ; they extracted eight 
propositions, which were short, concise, and decidedly errone- 
ous. Of these I will give you two as a specimen ; 'and one 
of these, in the self-same words, is contained in Dr. Beecher s 
sermon on the Native Character of Man. The proposition 
is, that God could not make Adam or any other creature 
either holy or unholy. And the sentiment is, that where 
there has been as yet no choice, there can be nothing in the 
creature either good or bad. And what says Dr. Beecher in 
his sermon ? He declares that no action can be either holy 
or unholy, unless there is understanding, conscience and a 
choice. The other proposition is, that no just law ever con- 
demns or criminates a man for not doing that which he cannot 
do. And how often was that very sentiment asserted and 
repeated, iterated and reiterated, in the sermon which was 
read to us yesterday 1 I shall not pretend to say, but leave 
the court to decide. 

Having now removed, or at least attempted to remove, out 
of the way, what I conceive to be important obstacles in the 
way of a just decision, I shall now proceed to examine the 
charges themselves, seriatim, with their several specifications, 
and the evidence in support of them. 

The court here took a recess of ten minutes. 



144 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



FIBST CHARGE. 

The court being reassembled. Dr. Wilson proceeded to 
read again the first charge. [See it on page 85.] 

He then quoted the Confession of Faith, ch. vi. sects. 8, 4, 6 : 

IIT. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, 
and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their pos- 
terity, descending from them by ordinary generation. 

IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, 
disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do 
proceed all actual transgressions. 

VI. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the 
righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, 
bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, 
and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries, 
spiritual, temporal, and eternal. 

Also the Larger Catechism, questions 26, 27 : 

Q. 26. How is original sin conveyed from our first parents unto their 
posterity ? 

A. Original sin is conveyed from our first parents unto their posterity by 
natural generation, so as all that proceed from them in that way are 
conceived and born in sin. 

Q. 27. What misery did the fall bring upon mankind ? 

A. The fall brought upon mankind the loss of communion with God, his 
displeasure and curse ; so as we are by nature children of wrath, bond- 
slaves to Satan, and justly liable to all punishments in this world, and that 
which is to come. 

He next read the passage from Dr. Beecher's sermon on 
the Native Character of Man, beginning (page 72) " A de^ 
praved nature is by many understood, &c," and ending (page 
74) " The fool has said in his heart, no God." 

The preceding part of this sermon was intended to prove 
that man is not religious by nature. It will be recollected 
that throughout the whole of what precedes this passage there 
is a mixture of that which has a wrong tendency, and is 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



145 



against the standards of our Church. For, let it not be for- 
gotten, that when the original proposition has been sustained, 
this paragraph is introduced for the purpose of explanation, in 
order to show what the writer means by the term accounta- 
bility, in those passages where the meaning of that term is not 
so explicit. And the explanation goes to show that the sen- 
timent of the writer is, that there is a period in numan ex- 
istence when the creature is neither good nor bad. Now, 
the question is, whether this sentiment does or does not coin- 
cide with the standards of our Church. Is it not at variance 
with them ? — nay, does it not positively contradict them ? The 
question must be answered in the affirmative, and the stand- 
ards of our Church must be sustained. I might easily go on 
to show that, according to this doctrine, the condition in which 
children are placed under the moral government of God is 
such as fits them neither for heaven nor for hell ; for, ac- 
cording to Dr. Eeecher, they are neither holy nor sinful. In 
contradiction to which, I might as easily prove, according to 
the doctrine of the Apostle Paul, and the faith of all sound 
Calvinists, that they are under condemnation, although they 
have not sinned according to the similitude of Adam's trans- 
gression. Our standards keep up a constant distinction be- 
tween original sin, the turpitude conveyed by it, and the 
punishment incurred previous to the time of volition on 
one hand, and actual sin on the other, as proceeding from the 
depraved and corrupted nature of the children of Adam, who 
are all born under a broken covenant, and whose fallen nature 
is inherited, without their knowledge or consent, from the 
federative relation in which they stand to Adam, their repre- 
sentative and first father. 

As to the first sin in any man, there are none who deny 
that it is voluntary. But our standards teach that it is never- 

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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



theless only a corrupt stream proceeding from a corrupt foun- 
tain. This the sermon denies ; and holds that, previous to 
this, the creature is neither good nor bad. Let us here apply 
our Saviour's own rule of judgment. He says that a good 
tree brings forth good fruit ; and a corrupt tree brings forth 
evil fruit. But a tree -which is neither good nor bad can 
produce neither good nor bad fruit. If it be true that actions 
proceeding from any nature are in accordance with the nature 
from which they proceed, then that which proceeds from a 
nature neither holy nor sinful, can itself be neither sinful nor 
holy. 

But it is said that those who deny this, place mind and 
matter upon the same footing ; and that the error of those who 
think that men are born in sin arises from supposing that the 
nature of mind and matter is the same. Hear what the ser- 
mon says on this subject : 

A depraved nature is by many understood to mean a constitutional 
nature, sinful prior to choice, and producing sinful choice by an unavoid- 
able necessity, as fountains of water pour forth their bitter streams, or 
trees produce their bitter fruit. The mistake lies in a virtual implication 
that the nature of matter and mind are the same ; whereas they are 
entirely different. The nature of matter excludes powers of perception, 
understanding and choice. But the nature of accountable mind includes 
them all. Neither a holy or a depraved nature, in the strict sense, is 
possible, without acts of understanding, conscience and choice. — pp. 72, 73. 

Does the writer mean to say that none of the animals has a 
depraved nature ? that the serpent, the vulture, the tiger, have 
not a nature that is depraved ? This he does not mean. But, 
if they have, whence did they derive it ? whence, but from 
the curse of the fall ? Would there have been any evil among 
the animals, if God had not said, " Cursed is the ground for 
thy sake " ? Still there is a wide difference between the rela- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



14T 



tion which these inferior beings sustain to Adam and that 
which his own children sustain to him. Yet, according to the 
sermon, this is not so. 

But I forbear. The court has the sermon in its hands, and 
is as competent as I can be. to compare it with the standards 
of the Church, and to see how far they agree or disagree. Xor 
can they fail to see that this is but one part of a system which 
a logical mind must carry out to other and most important 
results. What these results are. I shall show hereafter. 

SECOND CHABGE. 

Dr. Wilson now again read the second charge. [See it on 
page 86.] Also the following from the Confession of Faith, 
ch. ix. sec. 3 : 

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to 
any spiritual good accompanying salvation ; so as a natural man, being 
altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own 
strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. 

Dr. Wilson also read the following from the Larger Cate- 
chism. Quest. 25 : and Shorter Cat., Questions 101. 103 : 

Q. Wherein consisteth the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell ? 

A. The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consisteth in the 
guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of that righteousness wherein he was 
created, and the corruption of his nature, whereby he is utterly indisposed, 
disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly 
inclined to all evil, and that continually ; which is commonly called Original 
Sin, and from which do proceed all actual transgressions. 

Q. "What do we pray for in the first petition ? 

A. In the first petition (which is, Hallowed be thy name) we pray that 
God would enable us and others to glorify him in all that whereby he 
maketh himself known ; and that he would dispose of all things to his own 
glory. 

Q. What do we pray for in the third petition ? 

A. In the third petition (which is, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in 



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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



heaven) we pray that God, by his grace, would make us able and willing 
to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, as the angels do in 
heaven. 

With respect to what is here said concerning Free Will, the 
declarations of our standards are proved by facts recorded in 
the Scripture. The first declaration is proved by the fact, 
that Adam was not forced to eat the forbidden fruit; the 
second is proved from the fact, that Adam at first did good, and 
then did evil. And the third is no less proved by fact and 
daily observation : for men never do convert themselves, nor 
prepare themselves for being converted. They are wholly 
indisposed and unable, from the fall, to do either. But the 
framers of this confession, speaking of the will, say that the 
inability is an inability of the will. But, in the questions of 
the catechism, and through the standards generally, they take 
a just distinction between ability and will. It is, indeed, said 
that man is unwilling to keep the commandments of God, but 
they give a fuller explanation when they come to state what 
it is we ought to pray for ; for there they teach the Church 
that she is to ask God to make her both able and willing to 
keep his commandments. And I have cited these passages 
to prevent any cavil that might find seeming justification in 
the phraseology of this chapter on the will. From the words 
of the chapter alone, it might be argued, that though man has 
lost the will, he still retains the natural ability to keep the 
divine law. But what the chapter does mean on this subject 
is afterwards more fully explained, and from these subsequent 
explanations it is perfectly clear that our standards deny in a 
fallen man both ability and will to do anything spiritually 
good. 

Dr. Wilson now read again the second specification. [See 
it on page 87.] 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



149 



He then read an extract from Dr. Beecher's sermon on 
Dependence and Free Agency. 

The sinner can be accountable, then, and he is accountable, for his im- 
penitence and unbelief, though he will not turn, and God may never turn 
him, because he is able and only unwilling to do what God commands, and 
which, being done, would save his soul. Indeed, to be able and unwilling 
to obey God, is the only possible way in which a free agent can become de- 
serving of condemnation and punishment. So long as he is able and willing 
to obey there can be no sin ; and the moment the ability of obedience 
ceases, the commission of sin becomes impossible. — p. 22. 

Here the question naturally arises, How does it happen 
that such multitudes of the human family suffer so much as 
they do previous to the possession of the knowledge, conscience, 
and volition, which is declared to be essential to all sin ? He 
then read from pages 31, 32, 36. 

And the more clear the light of his conviction shines, the more distinct 
is the sinner's perception that he is — not destitute of capacity, but in- 
flexibly unwilling to obey the Gospel. Does the Spirit of God produce con- 
victions which are contrary to fact, and contrary to the teachings of the 
Bible ? Never. What, then, when he moves on to that work of sovereign 
mercy, which no sinner ever resisted, and without which no one ever sub- 
mitted to God, — what does he do ? When he pours the daylight of omnis- 
cience upon the soul, and comes to search out what is amiss, and put in 
order that which is out of the way, what impediment to obedience does 
he find to be removed, and what work does he perform ? He finds only the 
will perverted, and obstinately persisting in its sinful choice ; and in the 
day of his power all he accomplishes is, to make the sinner willing. — p. 31. 

It is not grace resisted alone, but the ability of man perverted and 
abused, that brings down upon him guilt and condemnation. The influence 
of the Spirit belongs wholly to the remedial system. W r hereas ability 
commensurate with requirement is the equitable and everlasting founda- 
tion of the moral government of God. — p. 32. 

The facts in the case are just the other way. The doctrine of man's free 
agency and natural ability as the ground of obligation and guilt, and of his 
impotency of will by reason of sin, has been the received doctrine of the 
orthodox church in all ages. — p. 36. 
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150 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



To prove that this is the doctrine of the orthodox church, 
we have here a long array of names of men, the most of whom 
never so much as professed to embrace our confession ; and 
not a single item from that book which Dr. Beecher so loudly 
eulogized, and pressed with so much emphasis to his heart. 

Dr. Wilson then read the fifth specification. [See it on 
page 87.] He also read the Confession of Faith, ch. xiii. 
sec. 1, and ch. xiv. sec. 1. 

They who are effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and 
a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, 
through the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, by his word and 
Spirit dwelling in them ; the dominion of the whole body of sin is de- 
stroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and 
mortified, and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all 
saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall 
see the Lord. — Ch. xiii. sec. 1. 

The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving 
of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is 
ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word : by which also, and by 
the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and 
strengthened. — Ch. xiv. sec. 1. 

Also the Larger Catechism, Question 72 : 

Q. 72. What is justifying faith ? 

A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner 
by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and 
misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover 
him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the 
promise of the Gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his 
righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting 
and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation. 

He then read from Dr. Beecher's sermon, page 43. 

One would think that a subject of God's glorious government, who can but 
will not obey him, might appear to himself and to the universe much more 
accountable, and much more guilty, in the day of judgment, than one 
whose capacity of obedience had been wholly annihilated by the sin of 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



151 



Adam. Does it illustrate the glory of God's justice more to punish the 
helpless and impotent than to punish the voluntary but incorrigible ? 

In answer to this, it might be said, that, for God to punish 
the innocent and the helpless, would exhibit his character 
only in the light of a tyrant. But, as he does punish the 
infants of our race, it remains for Dr. Beecher to reconcile 
what he here says with the standards of our Church. Where 
is there a single sentence in those standards which contains 
the assertion that all capacity of obedience has been annihi- 
lated by the sin of Adam ? And here I may remark, that 
the disciples of the new school, when speaking on the subject 
of original sin, either deny or caricature it. 

Dr. Wilson here read further extracts from Dr. Beecher' s 
sermon. 

Also from the Christian Spectator for 1825, p. 100, as 
follows : 

Men are free agents ; in the possession of such faculties, and placed in 
such circumstances, as to render it practicable for them to do whatever 
God requires ; reasonable that he should require it ; and fit that he should 
inflict literally the entire penalty of disobedience. Such ability is here 
intended as lays a perfect foundation for government by law, and for 
rewards and punishment according to deeds. 

The Presbytery now adjourned. Closed with prayer. 



Friday Morning. 
The Presbytery met, and opened with prayer. 

CHARGE THIRD. 

Dr. Wilson read the third charge. [See it on page 88.] 
Also the Confession of Faith, ch. vi. sees. 2, 4, ch. IX. 3. 



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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



L. C. Ques. 25 [quoted page 147], 149, 190. S. C. Ques. 
101, 103 [quoted page 147]. 

II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion 
with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly denied in all the faculties 
and parts of soul and body. 

IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, 
disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, 
do proceed all actual transgressions. 

III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will 
to any spiritual good accompanying salvation ; so as a natural man, being 
altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own 
strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. 

Q. 149. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God ? 

A. No man is able, either of himself, or by any grace received in this 
life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God : but doth daily bre . 
them in thought, word and deed. 

Q. 190. "What do we pray for in the first petition ? 

A. In the first petition (which is, Hallowed be thy name), acknowledg- 
ing the utter inability and indisposition that is in ourselves, and all men, 
to honor God aright, we pray that God would, by his grace, enable 
incline us and others to know, to acknowledge, and highly to esteem hi^, 
his titles, attributes, ordinances, word, works, and whatsoever he is pleased 
to make himself known by ; and to glorify him in thought, word and deed ; 
that he would prevent and remove atheism, ignorance, idolatry, profane- 
ness, and whatsoever is dishonorable to him ; and, by his overruling 
providence, direct and dispose all things to his own glory. 

He then quoted Dr. Beecher's sermon: 

When hi pours the daylight of omniscience upon the soul, and comes to 
search out what is amiss, and put in order that which is out of the way, 
what impediment to obedience does he find to be removed, and what work 
does he perform ? He finds only the will perverted, and obstinately 
persisting in its sinful choice ; and in the day* of his power all he accom- 
plishes is to make the sinner willing. — p. 31. 

The idea here conveyed is, that the Spirit of God makes a 
sinner willing in no other way than by presenting truth to 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



153 



his mind in a clearer manner than the preacher can exhibit 
it. He here read from the sermon, p. 22. 

So long as the sinner is able and willing to obey, there can be no sin ; 
and the moment the ability of obedience ceases, the commission of sin 
becomes impossible. 

Dr. Beecher here teaches Perfection in two ways. For it 
follows that when any creature has rendered himself incapable 
of doing good he can commit no sin. And, according to this 
doctrine, the devils must be perfectly sinless, ever since the 
first sin which they committed ; for I suppose none will deny 
t-hat by their first sin they rendered themselves incapable of 
good : and, the ability ceasing, all sin ceased likewise. But 
Dr. Beecher, in the first part of his sermon, maintains that 
the sinner is naturally able to keep the whole law of God, 
and here he declares that the Spirit makes him willing to do 

and that while he is both able and willing there can be no 
sin. And how can there be ? The conclusion is perfectly 
logical. It is entirely irrefragable, and follows by necessary 
consequence from the premises. 

And, on this part of my subject, I will turn to that part of 
the specification which declares that some of the Perfectionists 
have been inmates of Lane Seminary : and I now call upon 
the clerk to read the testimony which has been tab 1 before 
Presbytery, and recorded, touching that fact. 

The testimony was here read accordingly. [See it on 
pp. 95, 96, 100, 101, 102, 103, 109, 110, 111.] 

After listening to this testimony, I suppose there can be 
no doubt of the trcth of the statement, that some of the 
Perfectionists were inmates of Lane Seminary. For, if this 
was not the fact, and if the leaven of that heresy was not 
operating there, and if no fear was entertained that it might 



154 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



increase, and thereby affect the interests of that institution, 
why was it necessary for Dr. Beecher to give his students a 
warning against it ? For it seems that the letter to Weld was 
not known in the seminary. The witnesses met with it 
elsewhere. And what says Mr. Weed ? That although the 
students expressed no decided opinion in favor of that sys- 
tem in presence of Dr. Beecher, yet he knew of many who 
avowed to each other the opinion that every exercise of the 
mind was either entirely holy or entirely sinful. If. we are 
to credit his word, — and no one thinks of doubting it, — then 
the fact is established, not only from Dr. Beecher's finding it 
necessary to deliver a set lecture in opposition to those senti- 
ments, but from the fact that many of the students avowed 
them. No one will deny the propriety of young men in a 
theological seminary investigating^every subject of a theolog- 
ical kind. That is all right and proper. But when we have 
it in evidence that many of them received and avowed the 
sentiment, that every exercise of the mind is either entirely 
holy or entirely sinful, does it not show that they denied any 
such warfare in the bosom of a Christian as is spoken of in 
the Confession of Faith and in the Scriptures ? God forbid 
that I should speak a word against Christian Perfection ! I 
well know that it is one of the precious doctrines of the 
Bible ; and, when properly understood, it is what I long to 
feel for myself, and to see far more prevalent than it is 
among us. But while I see Perfection enjoined in the Bible, 
and while I hear holy men earnestly praying for its attain- 
ment, and while I can say that I delight in the law of God 
after the inward man, I am nevertheless constrained to add, 
that I see another law in my members which wars against 
this law of my mind. I can say that to will is present with 
me ; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 0, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



155 



wretched man that I am. — who shall deliver me from the body 
of this death } Xow. I would ask. if I had full ability before 
I was converted, what has become of it 7 I have it not now. 
Even when I will. I cannot perform. There is a law in my 
members which wars against the law in my mind, and brings 
me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members : 
and who shall deliver me I I thank God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. We are complete in him. And this is 
Christian Perfection : but not that Perfection which is taught 
in this sermon, or held by the students in Lane Seminary, or 
by the Perfectionists of Xew Haven. 

With respect to these Perfectionists, let me do them justice. 
They are. for the most part, highly talented men. and men 
of amiable dispositions : but they are misguided. And how 
came they to be misguided ? I shall show. The fact that 
such young men were in Lane Seminary I have not charged 
as a crime upon Dr. Beecher. Can a professor hinder the 
presence of corrupt students among the young men under his 
charge ? It is. indeed, a serious question, whether such 
ought to be excluded. Dr. Mason was the only man 
who ever expelled a student from a theological institution for 
holding heretical opinions. And has it not been made a sub- 
ject of grave complaint, that there were in Princeton Semi- 
nary some who came there with the express view of making 
proselytes to false doctrine ?- I never alleged it as any oflence 
in Dr. Beecher. And I introduced it merely to show that 
Dr. Beecher's sentiments, whatever he might have intended, 
do lead directly to such results. No man will pretend to 
blame him for warning his students against sentiments, or for 
delivering a set lecture in opposition to them. But where is 
the consistency of such a course 7 He advocates a theory 
which naturally leads to this : a theory which men do under- 



156 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



stand ; which men not only of cultivated minds, but of very 
devotional feeling, have understood, and have perceived that 
it does lead to such consequences. If Dr. Beecher had come 
plainly up and openly renounced those doctrines to which his 
system led,— if he had declared, with manly frankness, that, 
though he had been the unhappy instrument of leading those 
who confided in him to the adoption of such opinions, he 
nevertheless repudiated and condemned them, — this would 
have been consistent and praiseworthy. But, when he suf- 
fered his sentiments still to stand unobliterated and not 
denied in the text of his sermon, and then proceeded to warn 
these young men against that which was the necessary con- 
sequence, it was, to say the least, not a very consistent 
course. All can see, who have eyes to see, the perfect 
incongruity. * 

We heard a good deal yesterday concerning what these 
Perfectionists hold. They publish a newspaper called The 
Perfectionist, the editors of which, Messrs. Whitmore and 
Buckingham, are responsible for everything that appears in 
it. Let these gentlemen speak for themselves. Here Dr. 
Wilson read the following quotation : 

We believe the Gospel is emphatically glad tidings of redemption from 
sin, and Christianity is distinguished from the dispensation which preceded 
it chiefly by the fact that it brings in everlasting righteousness. Hence : 

We believe that sinners are not Christians : we object not to calling some 
of them Jewish saints, or sinful believers, or unconverted disciples, or ser- 
vants of God, as distinguished from sons ; but we affirm that they are out 
of Christ ; for " he that abideth in him sinneth not ; he that sinneth hath 
not seen him, neither known'him." 

Now, it is proper to know how these young brethren (I 
still call them brethren, for they are men of much mind and 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



157 



talent, and in many respects of good feeling) should fall into 
sentiments like these, and should be so confident in the main- 
taining of them. [The same confidence that was displayed 
thirty years ago by the Shakers, in maintaining theirs.] 
They mil tell you. Here Dr. Wilson read as follows : 

COLLOQUY. — NO. L 

B. — I understand you profess to be perfect, — how is this ? 

Answer. — Christ is made unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification 
and redemption. In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. I will 
greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for he hath 
clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with a robe 
of righteousness. "We are complete or perfect in Him. — 1 Cor. 1 : 30. 
Isa. 45 : 24 ; 61 : 10. Col. 2 : 10. 

B. — But don't you think we ought to have a righteousness of our own ? 

Ans. — All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. For they, being igno- 
rant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own right- 
eousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Not 
having mine own righteousness, which is the law, but that which is 
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. — 
Isa. 64 : 6. Bom. 10 : 3. Phil. 3 : 9. 

B. — I have always understood that there is no perfection in this life. 

Ans. — Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have holiness in 
the day of judgment ; because as he [Christ] is, so are we IN this world. 
Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holilt and justly and unblam- 
ably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. Be ye followers of 
me, even as I also am of Christ. As many of us as be perfect be thus 
minded. —1 John 4 : 17. 1 Thess. 2 : 10. 1 Cor. 11: 1. Phil. 3: 
15—17. 

B. — But don't you think it savors of pride to say you live without 
sin ? 

Ans. — It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Not 
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves ; but 
our sufficiency is of God. I am crucified with Christ ; nevertheless I live, 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us ; 
for thou hast wrought all our works in us. By the grace of God I am 
that I am. Not of works, lest any man should boast. In God we boast all 
the day long, and praise his name forever. What have we that we have 
VOL. III. 14 



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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



not received ? now, if we receive all as a free gift, why should we glory, as 
if we had not received it ? — Matt. 21 : 42. 2 Cor. 3 : 5. Gal. 2 : 20. 
Isa. 26 : 12. 1 Cor. 15 : 10. Eph. 2 : 3. Psal. 54 : 8. 1 Cor. 4 : 7. 

B. — Admitting that you are free from sin, would it not be better to 
avoid professing it ? 

jl ns . — With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the 
mouth confession is made unto salvation. Go home to thy friends and 
tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had com- 
passion on thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the 
whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. No man, when he 
hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed ; 
but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. 
I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared thy 
faithfulness and thy salvation ; I have not concealed thy loving-kindness 
and thy truth from the great congregation. — Rom. 10 : 10. Mark 5 : 19. 
Luke 8 : 16, 39. Ps. 50 : 10 

This speaks language which cannot be misunderstood. 
Whatever may be their conceptions with respect to the 
Reformation, they give the Reformers no credit save for hav- 
ing produced a reform in that which was anti- Christianity ; 
and they assert that God then raised up others who have pro- 
duced a true reformation, and who have carried it on until 
this day, when it has issued in that new divinity, of which we 
have all heard so much. This new divinity, it seems, accord- 
ing to their own account, was the thing which gave them the 
first stepping-stone ; and no wonder, — for, if the premises be 
true, their argument from them is correct. If it is true that 
the sinner is able to keep the commandments of God, and if 
the Spirit makes him willing to keep them, there can be no 
sin. The inference is most clear and logical ; and, if I believed 
the first position, I would go the whole ; nor can there be any 
consistency in doing otherwise. The friends of the new 
school must either return and take up the exploded doctrine 
of human inability, or carry out the opposite scheme, and 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



159 



avow themselves Perfectionists. Let them publicly abandon 
their whole system ; or let them go forward like honest men, 
and boldly carry it out to its results. 

Lest it should be supposed that the Perfectionists have 
done Dr. Beecher injustice, by associating his name with 
that of Mr. Finney, I will show how his course was viewed 
in New England, by some quotations from the letter of Mr. 
Rand : 

Another reason why you are reckoned as a decisive advocate of new 
principles is, the associations you have voluntarily formed. And here we 
judge according to the common maxim, that a man is known by the com- 
pany he keeps. — p. 12. 

Some years ago, but after Dr. Taylor had made himself conspicuous as a 
theorizer in theology, Dr. Beecher had occasion to be absent a few weeks 
from his people, in a time of religious excitement ; and he put Dr. Taylor in 
his place, to preach and " conduct the revival. 5 1 Dr. Taylor did not harshly 
obtrude his new theories upon the people at that time ; but Dr. Beecher was 
considered, by discerning men, under all the circumstances of the times, 
as giving distinct evidence of partiality for his views. When the first pro- 
tracted meeting in Massachusetts was held at Boston, Dr. Taylor did a 
large portion of the preaching, and was the only minister from abroad who 
took part in the public exercises. When Dr. Beecher was in New York, on 
his way to the West, he is understood to have taken frequent occasion to 
extol Dr. Taylor, as one of the first theologians of the age. And they who 
are acquainted with consultations, correspondence and other indications 
of intimacy, have long told us that these two gentlemen were united in 
promoting the same theological views. — p. 13. 

Now, sir, who was Mr. Finney's principal adviser, coadjutor and confi- 
dential friend, from his coming to Boston till he finally left it ? I answer, 
without hesitation, Dr. Beecher. Who originated the invitation, I know 
not. It was extended by Union Church, or their agents. Mr. F. replied, 
" I am ready to go to Boston, if the ministering brethren are prepared to 
receive me ; otherwise, I must decline." The question was submitted to 
the pastors assembled. No very decisive answer was given by most, I 
believe ; but Drs. Beecher and Wisner expressed their doubts of the expe- 
diency of the measure. But their doubts were soon after removed ; and 
he came, with their express approbation, and the acquiescence of others. 



160 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



He was immediately made the public preacher for the "whole Orthodox Con- 
gregational interest in Boston, and a contribution was levied upon the 
churches to support his family for six months. He held public evening 
meetings, generally twice a week, in a large and central house. These 
meetings were uniformly notified in the several congregations on the Sab- 
bath. Some of the pastors usually attended with him, took part in the 
exercises, gave his notices, and appeared to act in perfect concert with 
him, though he was always the preacher. In these movements, Drs. 
Beecher and Wisner were more prominent and active than all the others ; 
and Dr. Beecher repeatedly declared in public his full accordance with 
views which had been advanced. — p. 14. 

I have read this to show that it is not without reason Dr. 
Beecher was connected by the Perfectionists with Dr. Taylor 
and Mr. Finney. The system held by them all is substan- 
tially the same, though they do not all express it so fully as 
Mr. Finney and Dr. Taylor. The ^testimony we have heard 
has established the fact, that some of the Perfectionists were 
students in Lane Seminary. Dr. Beecher' s own book has 
established the 2d specification. It is now with the court to 
see what is the nature and amount of my charge. I do not 
blame him that such students were there ; nor do I charge 
him with being a Perfectionist, for he is not aware of it. I 
merely charge him with preaching sentiments from which 
those doctrines naturally flow. And if these sentiments are 
inconsistent with our standards, then let Dr. Beecher say 
which of the two he renounces, and to which he adheres. 

The Presbytery here took a short recess. 



FOURTH CHARGE. 

Dr. Wilson now read the 4th charge, and 1st specifi- 
cation. [See it on p. 89.] He said that he was not pre- 
pared to deny this when he w rote the charge ; but he was 
now fully prepared, from historical evidence, to do so. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



161 



I will now give a definition of slander. The verb means 
to belie, to censure falsely. The noun means false invective, 
disgrace, reproach, disreputation, ill-name. A slanderer is 
one who belies another, who lays false charges upon another. 
These are the definitions of Dr. Johnson ; and I will now 
reduce them all to a scriptural definition, which is contained 
in the 14th chap, of Numbers, 86 and 37 verses : 

And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and 
made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slan- 
der upon the land ; even those men that did bring up the evil report upon 
the land, died by the plague before the Lord. 

Now, I say that Dr. Beecher has, in his writings, brought 
up an evil report upon the Church of God, and upon those 
ministers who teach the doctrines of the Confession of Faith. 
To make his impression the deeper, he has given a caricature 
of their sentiments. Who that holds the doctrine that a 
sinner is unable to keep the law of God preaches that men 
ought to engage in the " impenitent use of means " ? Is not 
this a slander ? Yet, from what was read here yesterday, it 
appears that Dr. Beecher continued to utter this slander, even 
after the charges had been tabled ap-ainst him. For he con- 
tends that it was part of that false philosophy which was 
twisted into the creeds of the Reformation. And he further 
states that revivals have always flourished where his doctrine 
is preached ; or, if any have occurred elsewhere, it has been 
where the old system has been mitigated in its severity ; and 
that it is other doctrines, and not those of the old system, 
which, in such cases, have been blessed of God. Sir, this is 
the slander which has, for years past, been cast upon the old 
school, — that its advocates are the enemies of revivals, and 
that they preach doctrines which destroy the souls of men. 

vol. lit 14* 



162 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



What did we hear in this Presbytery when a young brother 
applied for license? Although his doctrines were admitted 
to be in accordance with the Confession of Faith, and his 
licensure could not be withheld, yet it was openly declared 
that such doctrine never converted men. We are told, by 
Dr. Beecher, that where the doctrines of human inability to 
keep the commandments of God, inability to convert our- 
selves, inability to engage in any holy exercises, have been 
taught, those churches have remained like Egypt by the side 
of other churches where the opposite doctrines were incul- 
cated. Yes, Sir, like Egypt in its midnight darkness ; like 
the mountains of Gilboa, without dews of heaven, or fields of 
offering ; or like the valley in Ezekiel's vision, where the 
bones were very many, and dry, very dry. 

Now, Sir, I ask, What has been the true history of the re- 
vivals thus produced by the preaching of the doctrines of the 
new school? It has been just what The Perfectionist 
stated. Such revivals have left the churches cold, barren, 
and spiritually dead. Such has been the utter sterility ex- 
perienced in the State of New York, and in some parts of 
New England, that all vitality is gone, and nothing but some 
new dispensation of Divine grace can renovate the face of the 
Church. Sir, what has been the history of these revivals on 
this side of the mountains, in our own region, and within the 
bounds of our own Presbytery 1 Wherever the doctrines of 
the new school have prevailed, and artificial excitements have 
been got up among the churches, there all vital religion has 
been prostrated, and the churches sunk into a state of death- 
like apathy and silence ; just such as The Perfectionist 
informs us has taken place on the other side of the moun- 
tains. But, on the contrary, where the doctrines of the Con- 
fession of Faith have been received and faithfully preached, 



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163 



the churches are growing, are in a state of order and harmony, 
and spiritual health universally prevails. Now, to bring up 
an evil report on a simple individual is slander, provided the 
report be untrue ; to say, indeed, that a drunkard is a 
drunkard, or that a liar is a liar, is no slander, however im- 
prudent the declaration, under some circumstances, may be. 
But, where the charge is made, and it turns out to be utterly 
false, it is the crime of slander, and is punished as such. 
But what is slander upon an individual, when compared with 
slander directed against the whole Church of God, against the 
orthodox in every age, against the blessed apostle who first 
preached the Gospel to the nations, against the martyrs who 
freely shed their blood to confirm it, and against the company 
of the reformers who were ready to lay down their lives in 
its defence ? Look, Sir, at that venerable company of West- 
minster divines, — men whose talents, learning and piety, 
have been the theme of just admiration from their own age 
until the present day ; — men who took up and investigated 
the whole system of divine truth, — who continued to sit for 
six or seven years, and who yet, when they formed their 
book, put into it this doctrine of the inability of fallen man ; 
— a doctrine which, it is said, the men of the new sehool 
have completely demolished, and with respect to which none, 
according to Dr. Beecher, had ever a distinct apprehension, 
so as to rise above the mists by which the subject is sur- 
rounded, till the time of Edwards, and those who have since 
followed the track he marked out ; — men who seem con- 
tinually to cry out, " We are the men, and wisdom will die 
with us." If this is not bringing up an evil report upon the 
Church of God, upon the Christian ministry, and upon the 
whole body of those who are the friends of orthodoxy in this 



164 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



country, I am quite unable to conceive what ought to be so 
denominated. 

FIFTH CHARGE. 

Dr. Wilson here read the 5th charge. [See p. 91.] 
As the fact here charged has been conceded, I need refer 
to no proof in its support. Dr. Beecher, however, objects 
to the introduction of the word " kindred," and has expressed 
a wish that that word might be erased. To this I shall 
make no objection, and will only observe that there must be 
something very wrong when people feel dishonored by their 
own kin. 

The Moderator pronounced this remark to be a violation 
of order. 

Dr. Wilson said, if it was out of order, he was willing it 
should be omitted. He thereupon proceeded to read the 
sixth charge. [See p. 91.] 

SIXTH CHARGE. 

He commenced his remarks on this charge by quoting 
Johnson's definition of the terms: Ci 'Hypocrisy \ — dissimu- 
lation in respect to moral or religious character ; — Hypo- 
crite, — a dissembler in morality or religion." 

Dr. Wilson then read again the 1st specification. [See 
p. 91.] 

Under this specification 1 shall read from a document pro- 
duced by Dr. Beecher at the last meeting of Presbytery. 
He read only a part of it. I wish to read a little more. It 
is an article from the Standard, dated October 20, 1832 ; 
and it is not over the signature of J. L. W., although it was 
said yesterday that Dr. Beecher had read nothing but what 
had these initials appended to it : 



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165 



New York, Oct 20, 1832. 
Although I have not had the privilege of much personal intercourse 
with you, yet I feel as if I were intimately acquainted with you. I am 
impelled also by existing circumstances to write you, and hope you will 

. I pray that you may have wisdom and grace as you need 

to glorify God. The men of the new school talk much of love, for- 
bearance and peace, when they are in the minority, and wish to carry their 
point ; but when they have the power, . The friends of the Re- 
deemer, however, have nothing to fear. I regret that they should, in any 

instance, have thought it necessary to contend against with his own 

weapons. It appears to me that we need only to pursue a straight 

course, abiding by the Word of God and the constitution of our Church, and 
leave events with the great Head of the Church. If we are in the minority, 
we can enter our dissent, solemn protest and remonstrance, and thus pre- 
serve a good conscience, and be protected in our rights, by the . I, 

for one, feel less apprehensions than I did, and would discountenance any- 
thing like the combination, management and attempts to overreach, as 
practised by the new party. Let us be firm in our adherence to the cause 
of truth and righteousness. Let us do our duty as Christians and as min- 
isters of the Gospel, and we are under the broad and impenetrable shield 

of the promise of God. If we are to be outnumbered and outvoted, 

be it so. has always had a majority. God has always had 

his witnesses. The Church has always been preserved. — Perhaps 

the Lord may have something better in store for us than we have feared. 
Perhaps he will prevent the spread of error in that branch of his Church 

to which we belong. It may be that shall not have a majority in 

. Many in this region who were on the fence, who were taken with 

their apparent zeal and devotedness, and felt inclined to favor their meas- 
ures, have had their eyes opened, have seen the tendency of their meas- 
ures, and have been disgusted with the men. They begin to feel the 
importance of guarding our standards, and are convinced that the matter 

of difference between is something more than a question about 

words. The sessions of our Synod have just closed. The doings 

in several cases were such as to try our strength. We have a large and 
decided majority of old-school men. The opening sermon was preached by 
a member from the country, Mr. Thompson, who was in the assembly last; 
spring. It was honest, bold and faithful, — much more so than we were 

prepared to hear. Most of our time was occupied in rectifying the 

irregularities of the 3d Presbytery. When that Presbytery was formed, 



166 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



we expected strange proceedings ; but our expectations have been far 
exceeded. They have held thirty-five meetings during the year, and have 
licensed and ordained a very large number of men. 

In the judgment of the Synod, expressed by a decided vote, they have 
violated the constitution in three instances, namely : 1. In dismissing a 
private member of the Church, a female, over the heads of the Session. 

The Presbytery gave her a dismission and letter of recommendation 

to another church, -which church would not receive her. So she is still 
under their care. — 

2. In receiving Mr. Leavitt, of this city, editor of the Evangelist, 
without any credentials whatever. He was introduced to the Presbytery 
by Dr. Cox, and received on their personal knowledge of him, without a 
dismission from his association or dismissing council. 

3. In receiving Dr. Beecher, without the requisite credentials, and 

by letter, and dismissing him to — Presbytery, without his appearing 

before them at all. He sent a written subscription to the questions 

in our book, with a request to be received ; also a recommendation from 
the association to which he belonged ; but not from the dismissing council, 
which is the only ecclesiastical body which Q,ould give him credentials. Yet 

they received him. He was thus : into a Presbyterian, that he might 

accept his call, and become Professor in the Lane Seminary. They knew 
he did not intend to reside within their bounds ; but to accommodate him, 

and prevent , they received and dismissed him in transitu. 

They were very sensitive, and affected to consider our objections to their 
proceedings an attack upon Dr. Beecher, which was furthest from our inten- 
tions. It was not his fault that they acted unconstitutionally. But you 
perceive the tendency of such proceedings. 

The committee appointed, , to examine their records, being of 

their own school, reported favorably ; but, in their statistical report, we 
learned the fact, in the case of Dr. B., and objected. After consid- 
erable discussion, a special committee was appointed to examine their 

records, who brought their doings to light. Two of their members 

were refused admission into ■ — Presbytery, and were not permitted to 

preach in the vacant churches within their bounds. These are try- 
ing times, and call for union and concert of prayer. I desire to feel that 
our hope is in God alone. We need his guidance and protection ; and 
having that, we have nothing to fear. 

A member of the court here inquired whether this paper 
had any signature. 



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167 



Dr. Wilson replied that it had not. and that he should 
not have been at liberty to produce it. had not Dr. Beecher 
been permitted to do so first. Dr. Wilson then read the 2d 
specification. [See p. 91.] 

With respect to this. I only need to remark, that what I 
read under the charge of slander shows conclusively that Dr. 
Beecher does consider the difference of doctrine to be material 
and essential : that it is not a mere logomachy, nor is there a 
mere shade of difference between the two systems. Far from 
it. For he tells us that one of these systems of doctrine 
practically eclipses the glory of the Sun of Righteousness, 
and has done more to hinder the salvation of souls than any- 
thing else in the Church : while the other is blessed of heaven, 
and spreads light and life wherever it goes. Yet. while he 
thus impugns the standards of our Church, and places the 
two doctrines in so strong contrast, he does — what ] I do 
not say that he adopts our standards, because I have no proof 
that he ever has adopted them. But I do say, that if he 
does adopt them, he is guilty of hypocrisy ; and no man can 
exonerate him from the charge. For he must be a hypocrite 
who professes cordially to adopt that which he disbelieves, 
impugns, and does his best to bring into disrepute. 

Dr. WnSOJSf then read the 3d specification. [See p. 91.] 

Under this specification I call for the reading of the testi- 
mony which has been taken before this court, touching the 
declarations made by Dr. Beecher respecting the Confession 
of Faith, when he stood before the Synod. 

The testimony was read accordingly. [See it on pp. 93, 
94> &c] 

The specification under which this testimony is introduced 
comes under the charge of dissimulation ; and it seems, from 
the evidence, that Dr. Beecher has seen a time when he 



168 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



could not adopt our standards fully. I do not know when 
this time was, for I never have been able to draw that out of 
him. Dr. Beecher himself stated, on a former occasion, that 
he commenced his ministry on Long Island by adopting the 
Confession of Faith as a Presbyterian minister ; that he then 
removed into New England, and took the charge of a Con- 
gregational Church, but without any change in his religious 
sentiments. The Confession of Faith was still his creed, and 
although he acted under the provisions of the Plan of Union, 
he still approved the form of government adopted and prac- 
tised in the Presbyterian Church. He afterward left the 
Congregational Churches, and entered the body to which we 
belong. At this time, it seems, he still professed to adhere 
to our standards, but it was under certain explanations of the 
terms there used. In the sermon which has been read before 
you, he admits that the language of the Reformers spoke of 
man's inability, but that this language was not understood, 
and that, therefore, he has a right of interpretation, inasmuch 
as the Church has interpreted her own creed. Admitting 
that he did adopt the standards fully, with this right of ex- 
planation, still, when his right to explain was called in 
question, when the language of his sermons was made a sub- 
ject of controversy, when he came before Synod in conse- 
quence, and found himself in peculiar circumstances, sur- 
rounded by a large popular assembly, and placed before an 
ecclesiastical body the complexion of which was well known, 
and a majority of whose members adhered to the standards in 
their literal sense and obvious meaning, Dr. Beecher made 
those statements respecting his belief in our Confession of 
Faith which have been given in testimony before you. He 
made them, the witnesses say, with an emphasis peculiarly 
impressive. One witness spoke of the waving of his hand, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



169 



while another tells you that he clasped the book to his bosom 
with a gesticulation that was very unusual to him, and then 
declared, in the form of an oath, that he believed those 
standards to contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth. This took place in the autumn of 1833 ; and 
now, in the spring of 1835, what does Dr. Beecher publish ? 
Why, he says, with respect to the creeds of the Reformers, 
and not excepting his own creed, that on some topics they . 
were more full than the proportion of faith would require at 
this day ; while, as a means of popular instruction and the 
exposition of truth, their language falls far short of what is 
called for by the times in which we live. 

Now, I ask, Where is the man in this house, who, upon his 
solemn oath, can state that he believes this Confession of 
Faith to contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth? For myself, I can say, unhesitatingly, that it 
does contain the truth; and further, that, according to my 
knowledge, it is the most perfect system" of doctrine which has 
ever been compiled by human effort. Yet I could not say 
that it contains nothing but the truth, although there is noth- 
ing in it which I object to. Still less can I say that it con- 
tains, the whole truth, for I know that it does not. It is 
obvious, therefore, that the declaration made by Dr. Beecher, 
before the Synod, was made in a reckless manner. And, 
taking all the circumstances of the case into view,- — remember- 
ing where he stood, and that his standing and orthodoxy as a 
Christian minister were at stake, — it appears to me equally 
obvious that the declaration was made for popular effect. And 
what he has since published shows that he believes our stand- 
ards to be far short of what is called for by the exigency of 
our times ; and, of course, that it does not contain the whole 
truth. 

VOL. III. 15 



170 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



[Dr. Beecher here inquired whether the language last re- 
ferred to had been by him applied to the Confession of Faith. 

Dr. Wilson replied that he so understood it.] 

Dr. Wilson proceeded to read again extracts from Dr. 
Beecher's book, entitled, " The Causes and Remedy of 
Scepticism." [Already quoted. See vol. I. p. 65.] 

Here, said Dr. Wilson, he is attempting to show that the 
very creeds of the Reformation are calculated to produce 
scepticism. He says that they are mere skeletons. What 
then, becomes of his declaration, that they contain the whole 
truth? And here I was going to stop; but I am led to 
remark, in general, that Dr. Beecher is in the habit of mak- 
ing reckless declarations. To show this, I will take his 
lecture on the cause of scepticism. When speaking of the 
French Revolution and its effect 

[Here Mr. Biiainerd interposed, and observed that this was 
not relevant to the case. Dr. Beecher was not on trial for 
making reckless declarations.] 

Dr. Wilson said that he did not care about the introduc- 
tion of the passage. It would only go to show that the 
sweeping declarations of Dr. Beecher were intended for popu- 
lar effect. They must be made either without intention, — and 
that would argue what Dr. Wilson never should charge upon 
Dr. Beecher, namely, a want of sense, — or, they must be 
made, as he had averred, for the purpose of producing popu- 
lar effect ; and that was all he had charged under this head. 
Dr. Wilson then read the 4th specification. [See p. 91.] 
On this I shall merely say, that when you look at Dr. 
Beecher's sermons, and then consider the facts in connection 
with the 3d specification, how can you conclude otherwise 
than that his course exhibits dissimulation ? 

I shall now close the argument, by referring the court to the 



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171 



decision of the Synod of Ohio, which was made in reference 
to these very difficulties : not as they have been occasioned 
by Dr. Beecher s preaching and publications, but elsewhere, 
as produced by others holding the same sentiments. The 
Synod made a record on their minutes, and gave it as an 
injunction upon all the Presbyteries under their care, that 
persons using doubtful language, or phrases which were new, 
and which caused disturbance in the Church, should be subjects 
of discipline. 

In the next place, I shall present to the court Dr. Beeeh- 
ei's creed, as contained in his select system. It consists of 
eleven articles, and may be found in Dr. Beecher' s reply to 
the Christian Examiner. The Christian Examiner^ let 
it be remembered, is a Unitarian paper, and the Unitarians 
claim all the articles of the creed except two. And such was 
the clearness of the article in which this claim was advanced, 
so strong and so conclusive were the arguments it contained, 
that Dr. Beecher was obliged to come out in a long, and 
labored reply. The articles of the creed are these : 

— — men are free agent? ; in the possession of such faculties, and placed 
in such circumstances, as to render it practicable for them to do whatever 
3 3 1 3 aires ; reasonable that he should require it ; and fit that he should 
inflict, literally, the entire penalty of disobedience. Such ability is here 
intended as lays a perfect foundation for government, and for rewards and 
punishments according to deeds. 

And now I ask, Is there here to be found one single dis- 
tinctive feature which belongs exclusively to that system of 
doctrine which is taught in our standards ? There are, to be 
sure, sentiments which are held in common : and the last, 
especially, is received by Arminians, Catholics, Universalists, 
and almost all other sects, the Unitarians excepted. But 
here is not one single distinctive feature of the Calvinistic 



172 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



system. The creed may very appropriately be called a select 
system, which some of all sects receive, and which some of all 
sects reject. I will now read Dr. Beecher's note appended to 
his sermon on this select system. 

[Mr. Brainerd here inquired whether Dr. Beecher had 
set forth these eleven articles as .the fundamental principles 
of Christianity, or as expressing the whole of his own creed.] 

Dr. Wilson replied, that he did not care whether they 
contained his entire creed or not. These were the articles as 
he had given them in his sermon. Dr. Wilson then read the 
note 3 as follows : 

I choose to call these doctrines the evangelical system, not only because 
I believe them to be the Gospel, but because no man, or denomination, has 
held them so exclusively as to render it proper to designate them by the 
name of an individual or a sect. It is a select system, which some of 
almost every denomination hold, and some Reject ; and which ought to be 
characterized by some general term indicative of the system, as held in all 
ages and among all denominations of Christians. 

To sum up the whole matter : It will be proper for you, as 
a court, to mark Dr. Beecher's course, as far as it has been 
exhibited to you by evidence, from its commencement to the 
present time. It must be evident to all that his course has 
been marked with vacillation, and has been calculated to 
excite deep suspicion and long and loud complaint, both in 
and out of New England ; that it has been such as hitherto 
to elude detection, and escape anything like a trial on its real 
merits ; that one feature which has peculiarly marked it has 
been the mixture in his publications of truth and error, — just 
enough truth to make the error with which it is associated 
most deleterious and deadly to the souls of men. This has 
been the course adopted by all false teachers in every age of 
the Church, as well before as since the coming of Christ. Nor 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



173 



is it strange ; for no error could succeed, if it should be pre- 
sented naked and alone, unless in a system of the most open 
and abandoned infidelity, or in such lectures as are delivered 
in Tammany Hall, New York. What has our Lord told us 
respecting such teachers ? He said that they would come in 
sheep's clothing. And what is sheep's clothing, but an 
exhibition in part of such truths as none can gainsay or 
disprove, accompanied by an example of personal conduct 
with which none can find fault ? We have had two indi- 
viduals in the West, — I refer to Barton W. Stone, and to 
Mr. Parker, of New Richmond, — who, while they were 
the most decided errorists of modern times, maintained for 
thirty years morals of the most exemplary and unimpeachable 
desciiption. They came in sheep's clothing. And what is 
Paul's description ? He says that with good words and fair 
speeches they should beguile the hearts of the simple. And, 
what is very extraordinary, men of this description have ever 
appeared to be entirely unconscious of their own inconsistent 
and reckless course. Of this there is not a more impressive 
example than that of the brilliant and conspicuous Irving. 
When he had pushed his delusion even to the extreme of pro- 
fessing to speak with new tongues, and after he had been 
tried and condemned for his false and heretical opinions, he 
laid a paper on the table of the Presbytery, declaring in the 
fullest terms his belief in the whole Confession of Faith. 
Errorists ever appear unconscious of their own character. 
And how can it be otherwise, when God himself has told us 
that it would be so ? The sentiments of which I complain 
are not insulated and independent tenets. They form part 
of a system; and it is a system so connected, that if you 
adopt one of its-leading principles, and possess a logical mind, 
you will be obliged to follow that principle out, until you 
VOL. III. 15* 



174 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



have adopted the whole. For example : suppose you adopt 
the doctrine of the natural ability of fallen man to do what is 
good, — his perfect capacity to comply fully with the law and 
the Gospel of God, — and make faith and repentance the terms 
on which God will forgive sin, and save the soul. You then 
necessarily exclude the direct agency of the Holy Spirit upon 
the heart in quickening those who are dead in sin. You then 
represent the Spirit, in the work of conversion, merely as 
being more capable of presenting truth to the mind than a 
man is. And this is the very illustration given in Ross' 
treatise, entitled, 1 1 Faith according to Common Sense. 7 ' And 
as soon as you lay aside the agency of the Spirit in creating 
a new heart, you get at once upon the system of moral sua- 
sion. Then comes an indefinite atonement, through which 
God can forgive sin on condition of faith and repentance ; 
which repentance and faith the sinner by his own strength is 
able to exercise, and which he is persuaded to exercise because 
the Spirit of God is able to present truth in a more luminous 
manner than a human preacher can do it. Or, to use Ross' 
illustration, a boy cannot split the log, not owing to any 
insufficiency in the wedge or the maul, but because he has 
not strength enough for the task ; but when a man comes 
along, and takes hold of them, the log is immediately riven 
asunder. This illustration, however, was a bad one on their 
part, because it implies passivity in regeneration, a point 
which they deny. W ell, as soon as you adopt the indefinite 
atonement, you cut up by the roots the federative representa- 
tion of the second Adam ; and, when you have done this, 
consistency will oblige you to go back, and deny the federa- 
tive representation of the first Adam ; and thus you have got 
to the denial of original sin ; and you must say, with Dr. 
Beecher, that " somehow, in consequence of Adam's fall, all 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



175 



men sin voluntarily : and that the first sin in every man could 
have been and ought to have been avoided.' ; Again, take the 
other side of the proposition, and you run into the system of 
the Perfectionists. Man is able to keep the whole law. The 
Spirit so persuades him as to make him willing. And when 
he is both able and willing, there can, of course, be no sin. 

Now, we say that this is u another Gospel ; " that it is not 
the system of truth revealed in the Scriptures ; and I am 
here prepared to say, as the apostle did, without the least 
bitterness of spirit, and with an earnest desire that God would 
be pleased to turn men from their darkness and delusion, that 
if any man preach another Gospel, let him be anathema. 
The apostolic injunction must be obeyed, — to mark those 
who cause contentions among Christians, and to avoid them : 
because, by good words and fair speeches, they beguile the 
hearts of the simple. 

Sir, this is zealously pushed forward. It has already 
created divisions and distractions throughout the Presbyterian 
Church. What was once the condition of all the Churches 
under the care of this Synod ? They lived in peace. They 
acted as brethren. Meetings of the Synod and of the Presby- 
teries were anticipated as seasons of refreshing. We were all 
engaged, — not, indeed, to the extent we should have been, in 
laboring in the Lord's cause. We did, indeed, fall far short 
of our whole duty, but still we labored together with mutual 
affection, and our meetings were blessed. And I here say 
openly, and without fear of contradiction, that we enjoyed 
happy seasons of religious revival, until they were checked 
an^l interrupted by the introduction of this new system. 
But since this new divinity has entered our bounds, we have 
had nothing but distraction and disunion. Our revivals have 
been killed, and our once rejoicing Churches now sit in a 



176 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



death-like silence. Yes, sir, they are like the mountains of 
Gilboa, destitute of the dews of heaven ; they are like the 
bones in the valley of vision, dry, very dry. My brethren, 
you are called upon, as guardians of the purity of the 
Church, and watchmen upon her walls, to restore that peace 
and order which she once enjoyed, by putting a check to a 
system of doctrine which ought, like the idols of the heathen, 
to be cast with all speed to the moles and to the bats. 

And let me tell you now that with this system there can 
be no compromise. Things which are so utterly contradictory 
never can be made to coalesce. The old and the new divinity 
are now engaged in an arduous and desperate struggle. It is 
like the contest of fire and water. And they must continue 
to fight until the weaker shall die. And, though this is poetry, 
it is no fiction. Much will depend on you. The days of 
white-washing are gone by forever. That party which shall 
be victorious will maintain the seminary, and control its 
funds ; and that party which is not sustained must go out ; 
for we cannot live together. The Confession of Faith must 
go down, or the new theology must be put out of doors. 
Your decision, it is true, will not be final. But, if it shall be 
made in conformity with the standards of our Church, what 
you bind on earth will be bound in heaven ; and, even though 
it should be annulled by men, will, nevertheless, in the end 
be recognized by the broad seal of the great Master. 

The simple question which each of you is bound to put to 
his own conscience, under each separate charge, in this trial, 
is simply this : Has this charge been sustained by evidence ? 
and, unless I am greatly deceived indeed, your reply must 
be in the affirmative. And, if it is, will you acquit this man ?- 
Will you tell him to do so no more ? and will you there let 
it end ? Be reminded, I pray you, of the cases of Barnes 



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177 



and Duffield. There a white-washing committee was ap- 
pointed, who white- washed both parties. In the latter case, 
the charges were sustained, and the man proved guilty ; he 
was gently advised to offend no more. And, what followed ? 
— Peace? Order? — No; deeper and deeper animosities, and 
wider and wider divisions, were the natural consequences; 
and must continue to be the consequences, until the decisions 
of church-courts are made so clear with respect to the inflic- 
tion of censure that they will effectually guard against the 
inroads of heresy, that they shall strike terror into the breast 
of every heresiarch. and shall rescue every inexperienced 
novice from his facilis descensus Avemi, — the easy road to 
perdition. 

I have taxed my ingenuity to discover what defence could 
possibly be set up by the accused ; and I confess myself 
utterly unable so much as to conjecture. This may be owing 
to my want of imagination, and of ingenuity ; and Dr. 
Beecher will very probably show something that was far 
beyond my powers of imagination to anticipate ; and when 
his powerful intellect shall have demonstrated that white is 
black, that two and two do not make four, then, and not till 
then, may he expect an acquittal. 



Friday afternoon. 
Dr. Beecher said that before commencing his defence he 
wished to adduce some additional testimony in reference to 
the question how much of his capital in character he had 
lost before he left New England ; and he adduced it in order 
to meet the anonymous and personal letters which had been 
read by Dr. Wilson/ as published by Mr. Rand, the Edward- 
ean, and others. 



178 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Dr. Wilson said lie had no objection, so far as it was 
testimony ; but, at present, Dr. Beecher himself stood on one 
side, and Mr. Rand on the other, as to the question of Dr. 
Beecher' s capital in reputation. He presumed the Presby- 
tery was competent to decide between them. 

Professor Stowe was thereupon sworn, and testified as 
follows : 

According to the best of my knowledge, Dr. Beecher' s 
reputation and influence in New England were never so 
great, nor did he ever enjoy so extensively the confidence of 
the religious community, as at the time when he received and 
accepted the invitation to come to Cincinnati. 

To the best of my knowledge, he had then but three open 
and declared assailants of public character : 

1. Thomas Whittemore, editor of the Universalist 
Trumpet ; a paper uniformly marked with the worst feat- 
ures of the most ferocious kind of Universalism. 

2. Moses Thatcher, editor of the Neio England Tele- 
graph ; a paper devoted to the most ultra kind of Hopkins- 
ianism, which makes God the direct efficient cause of every 
sinful thought, emotion, word and deed of every sinful crea- 
ture in the universe ; and to the most ultra kind of independ- 
ency in church government, which he carried to such an 
extreme that the Hopkinsians themselves, with Dr. Emmons 
at their head, made a public disclaimer and condemnation of 
his views and proceedings in matters of church discipline. 
Mr. Thatcher had had difficulties in his own church, which 
were divided against him in a council of which Dr. Beecher 
was a prominent member. 

3. Asa Rand, editor of the Volunteer, and afterwards the 
Lowell Observer. I was for many years acquainted with 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



179 



Mr. Rand, having fitted for college in the parish of which he 
ay as minister, and boarding next door to him ; and afterwards 
occupying, for about a year, the same office-room with him 
in Boston, as an editor. He is a man of great industry, 
perseverance, and other valuable traits of character ; but, 
from his peculiar habits of thought, and feeling, and action, 
not likely to do justice to such a man as Dr. Beecher. He 
was opposed to Dr. Beecher' s theology, being himself an 
advocate of the taste and exercise scheme of Dr. Burton. He 
disliked Dr. Beecher' s mode of preaching, being strenuously 
hostile to religious excitement and strong appeals to the feel- 
ings, of which he had given decided proof many years before, 
by his disapprobation of Dr. Payson's mode of preaching, in 
whose neighborhood he was settled, and whose sister he had 
married. Besides, Dr. Beecher was uniformly successful in 
Boston, and constantly rising in influence, while Mr. Rand 
was uniformly unsuccessful, and his influence was continually 
decreasing. Those acquainted with the circumstances will 
receive Mr. Rand's statement and innuendoes with great abate- 
ment ; not from any distrust of his moral integrity, but from 
a knowledge of the medium through which facts would pre- 
sent themselves to his mind. To the best of my knowledge, 
the suspicions and complaints alluded to in Mr. Rand's letter 
to Dr. Beecher were confined to a very small number of per- 
sons, and did not by any means extend to the great body of 
what is called the old-school party in New England, or the 
most judicious and leading men in that party. Of the men 
of this class, no one stands higher than Dr. Woods, of An- 
clover. I lived in his house part of the time while I was at 
the seminary ; from that time to this he has always treated 
me with the kindness, affection, and confidence of a father, 
and I have always loved, and trusted, and consulted him as 



180 



VIEWS OE THEOLOGY. 



such. While deliberating whether I should come to Lane 
Seminary, Dr. Woods frequently, and with the deep feeling 
characteristic of him, expressed to me his affectionate con- 
fidence in Dr. Beecher, and his earnest wish for the success 
of the seminary. The same feelings were expressed to me 
by Dr. Woods, and the same kind wishes reiterated, when I 
visited him at his house in September last. 

Dr. Tyler is well knpwn to the public as the chief antago- 
nist of "the New Haven theology. He stands to me in the 
relation of a father and confidential friend. I have been for 
years a member of his family, and his children are my broth- 
ers and sisters. When I was deliberating about coming to 
Lane Seminary, Dr. Tyler expressed the same feelings with 
Dr. Woods, and, perhaps, with still greater distinctness. He 
has frequently said to me, in conyersation, " I always loved 
Dr. Beecher, and have entire confidence in him," or words to 
that effect. It is my full conviction that the feelings of Dr. 
Woods and Dr. Tyler towards Dr. Beecher are the feelings 
of the great body of the religious community in New Eng- 
land, even among the strong opponents of what is called new 
divinity men and measures. The Congregational ministers 
of Maine and New Hampshire, particularly, are almost 
entirely of this class, and I never saw one that did not love 
and confide in Dr. Beecher ; and I am personally acquainted, 
I think, with a majority of the ministers in both those states. 
The pamphlet by an Edwardean, I am sure, does not express 
the feeling of even the old-school party in New England. I 
never heard Dr. Woods or Dr. Tyler say a word in favor of 
it. This pamphlet was strongly disapproved by men of all 
parties ; and the author, as far as I know, has, to this day, 
never dared to avow himself : and, from my connection with 
opposers of New Haven theology, I think I should have 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



181 



known it, if he had. It was everywhere regarded in New 
England as a great and heroic sacrifice, on the part of Dr. 
Beecher, to give up the advantages of the reputation and 
public influence he had then acquired, and to go to a distant 
field, where he must gain reputation anew, and work his way 
like a young man. 

Rev. F. Y. Vail was then sworn, and his testimony is as 
follows : 

I have, during the last four years, visited the churches and 
ministers extensively in New York and the States of New 
England, in obtaining funds for the Lane Seminary. I have 
great confidence in stating that the association of Dr. Beech- 
er' s name with this institution was one of the most important 
means of securing the funds requisite for its endowment ; and 
that both ministers and churches, wherever I have visited, 
have, with scarcely an exception, manifested the most un- 
shaken confidence in J)i\ Beecher. The general impression 
seemed to pervade the Congregational and Presbyterian 
churches with which I have had intercourse, that the removal 
of no other man would be so great a blessing to this important 
section of our country as that of Dr. Beecher ; and it was 
w T ith much regret that they were called to give up his 
important and valuable services in New England. 

Rev. Artemas Bullard was next sworn, and testified as 
follows : 

For nearly five years I was agent of the Massachusetts 
Sabbath School Union, before Dr. Beecher w T as called to the 
West, and for several years a member of Dr. Beecher's 
church in Boston. I have visited nearly every Orthodox 
Congregational minister in Massachusetts, and a great por- 

vol. in. Ifi 



182 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



tion of all in the New England States. Among all these I 
know the reputation of Dr. Beecher had been uniformly rising 
till he left. There was no minister in New England so uni- 
formly dreaded and hated by Unitarians and Universalists as 
Dr. Beecher. I was in the church-meeting when the ques- 
tion was discussed whether Dr. Beecher should be dismissed 
to come here. The main reason urged why he should not 
come, by members of the Church, was, that he never had so 
much influence in the orthodox community as then. 

Dr. Wilson. — What is the standard of orthodoxy among 
the clergymen you denominate orthodox 1 

Answer. — Those are denominated orthodox, in New Eng- 
land, who are opposed to Unitarian sentiments. 

Dr. Wilson. — Have they any written or published creed, 
which forms a bond of union among them, as our system of 
doctrine ? 

Ans. — Nothing like the Confession of Faith of the Pres- 
byterian Church. 

Dr. Wilson. — Is not every congregation, in respect to its 
articles of faith, independent, claiming the right of forming its 
own creed and covenant ? 

Ans. — I believe they are. 

Dr. Wilson. — Was the creed and covenant of Dr. 
Beecher' s church similar to that which has been extracted 
from the sermon on " Faith once Delivered to the Saints"? 

Ans. — I never compared the two. 

Dr. Wilson. — In what estimation did the orthodox 
ministers of New England hold that sermon ? 

Ans. — I don't recollect ever hearing that mentioned as 
distinct from other sermons. 

Dr. Wilson. — Has Mr. Rand, in his letter to Dr. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



183 



Beecher, misrepresented or misstated Dr. Beecher s connec- 
tions with Dr. Taylor and Mr. Finney ? 

Ans. — I don't know what was in that letter. 

Dr. TVilsox. — Why did the Unitarians hate Dr. Beecher, 
when the Christian Examiner, in a review of his sermon on 
" Faith once Delivered.'* &c 3 claimed the sentiments as their 
own ? 

Ans. — They hated and dreaded him because they sup- 
posed that he was the most powerful and efficient opponent of 
Unitarian sentiments. His labors in Boston were specially 
directed to counteract Unitarian sentiments. 

Dr. Wilsox. — Do you not know it as a historical fact 
that Unitarians greatly rejoice at the progress of what is 
called new theology ? 

Ans. — They do not. if you mean that Dr. Beecher's doc- 
trines are new theology. 

Mr. Brainerd. — Are the orthodox ministers and churches 
of New England Calvinists ? 

Ans. — Yes, so far as they follow any man. 

Dr. Beecher. — In what estimation do ministers and 
churches hold the Assembly's Shorter Catechism 3 

Ans. — The orthodox churches, universally, consider it the 
best epitome of the doctrines of the Bible. The families are 
taught that Catechism as universally as they are in the Pres- 
byterian Church. 

Dr. Wilson. — Do they teach the Shorter Catechism as it 
is mutilated and altered by the American Sabbath School 
Union, or as it exists in the standards of our Church ? 

Ans. — I never knew any of the American Sabbath School 
Union Catechism in New England. 

Mr. Bullard confirmed the testimony of Prof. Stowe, 



184 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



respecting Mr. Band, and the editors of the Telegraph, 

Trumpet, and others. 
Prof. Stowe called up again. 

Dr. Wilson. — Has Mr. Rand, in his letter to Dr. 
Beecher, part of which has been read before this Presbytery, 
misrepresented or misstated Dr. Beecher' s cooperation with 
Dr. Taylor and Mr. Finney in Boston ? 

Ans. — I cannot give a simple affirmation or negation to 
the question ; but must say that the statements of the letter 
are unfair, inasmuch as they represent Dr. Beecher as 
entirely concurring in, and responsible for, all the sentiments 
and measures of Dr. Taylor and Mr. Finney ; and the dis- 
claimer which he asserts of such intention does not at all 
correct the general impression which the letter always makes. 
[Read and approved.] i 

Dr. Beecher now rose, and addressed the court in nearly 
the following terms : 

I have fallen very unexpectedly, at my time of life, on the 
necessity of getting testimony to support my theological and 
clerical character. But, since I am called to it, I may as well 
make thorough work: and I shall, therefore, request the 
clerk to read a letter addressed to me by the Rev. Dr. Greene, 
two years previous to my coming to this place. The letter is 
dated 31st March, 1828, and is as follows : 

Philadelphia, March 31, 1828. 
Rev. and Dear Sir : This, Sir, will be handed you by two members 
of the Fifth Presbyterian Church of this city, who have been delegated to 
consult you on the subject of a call to the pastoral charge of that Church. 
They need no assistance from me in explaining their views, or in showing 
the importance of the situation to which they and the people they repre- 
sent have invited you. My design, in writing this note, -is to say, that, 
having presided at the meeting of the congregation at which this call was 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



185 



Yotecl, I can and do assure you that the most perfect unanimity and 
apparent cordiality marked the whole proceeding. Public notice of the 
meeting had been fully given on the preceding Lord's day ; the assembly 
was large and solemn : and there was neither a dissenting voice, nor, so 
far as I judge, a neutral individual, when the vote was taken. 

I have only to add, that if you shall find it to be your duty to become an 
inhabitant of this city, and a member of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, 
you shall, if I am spared to witness it, be received and treated in the most 
respectful manner, and with true fraternal affection. 

Tour friend and brother in the Gospel of our precious Becleemer, 

As he el Greene. 

Rev. Dr. Beeches. 

Let it be remembered that this letter was written by Dr. 
Greene after he had commended, as Calvinistic, the sermon in 
which I advanced the doctrine of man's natural ability : for 
which, in the opinion of my brother Wilson, I ought to be 
turned out of the Church, and, of course, Dr. Greene also. 

I will now request the clerk to read another letter addressed 
to me, about the same time, from the Rev. Dr. Miller. This 
is dated April 2, 1828, and is in the following words : 

Princeton, April 2, 1828. 

Key. axd Dear Brother : Before this letter reaches your hands, you will 
have been apprized that the church of which our friend Dr. Skinner was 
lately the pastor, has given you an unanimous call to become their minister. 

Some are disposed to smile at this measure, as a sort of desperate effort 
at retaliation, for robbing Philadelphia of Dr. Skinner. Others view it 
as a plan by no means hopeless. But all, so far as I know, in this region, 
would most cordially rejoice in the success of the application, and hail 
your arrival in Philadelphia as an event most devoutly to be wished by all 
the friends of Zion within the bounds of the Presbyterian Church. 

-My dear brother, I beg, with all the earnestness that I am capable of 
feeling or uttering, that you will not either lightly consider or hastily 
reject this call. I do seriously believe that, however painful the step (of 
removal to Philadelphia) might be, both to the friends of religion in 
Massachusetts and to yourself, the residue of your days could not possibly 
be disposed of (so far as human views can go) in a manner so much calcu- 
VOL. III. 16* 



186 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



lated to unite the friends of Christ in the South and West with those at the 
East, and to introduce a new era of harmony, love and cooperation, in- 
the American churches. 

It is not only a matter of immense importance that the individual 
church in Philadelphia which gives you this call should be supplied with 
a pastor wise, pious, peaceful, prudent and acceptable, as far as possible, 
to all parties ; but, if you will come in to that place, I am most deeply per- 
suaded that you will have an opportunity of a most happy and reviving 
influence all around you, to a degree which very few men in our country 
have ever had ; that you will be likely, humanly speaking, to bring together 
feelings and efforts which are now widely separated ; and, in fact, of giving 
a new impulse to all those great plans which I know to be near your heart. 

By removing to Philadelphia, — unless I utterly miscalculate, — you 
would not be likely to subduct very essentially from your usefulness in 
Massachusetts. You might still, by means of writing and occasional visits, 
continue to do there a large portion of what you now do ; while your influ- 
ence and usefulness in the Presbyterian Church, from New England to New 
Orleans, might, and probably would, be increased ten-fold. I have no doubt 
that, by your acceptance of the station to which you are called, your 
opportunity for doing good in the American churches would be doubled, if 
not quadrupled, at a stroke. 

Say not that these things are matters of human calculation. They are so ; 
and yet, I think, the book of God, and human experience, furnish an abun- 
dant foundation for them to rest upon. The truth is, we want nothing, 
for the benefit of our eighteen hundred churches (next to the sanctifying 
Spirit of God), so much as an individual in Philadelphia (our ecclesiastical 
metropolis) who should be active, energetic, untiring, comprehensive in 
his plans, and firm and unmoved in his purposes and efforts. Will you not 
cast yourself on the Lord's strength and faithfulness, and come and help us 
to unite all our force in One mighty effort, in the name of our heavenly 
King, to promote his cause at home and abroad ? With the cordiality of a 
brother, and the freedom of an old friend, I conjure you, when such an 
open door is set before you, not to refuse to enter it. As to your reception 
among us, I hope I need not say that it would be universally with glad 
hearts and open arms ! May the Lord direct and bless you ! Sincerely 
your friend and brother, Samuel Miller. 



I have reason to believe that Dr. Miller, at the time he 
wrote this letter, had read all my publications but the last"; 



TRIAL BEFORE PREtBTTEEY. 



1 



and if so. he and Dr. Greene ought to go our of the Church 
together. 

I have another letter, of a somewhat later date : and. now 
that I am holding up myself by certificates of character. I 
wish that this. too. may be read. It is from the Rev. Dr. 
J. L. Wilson. 

Dr. Wilsox here inquired whether this was the same letter 
which Dr. Beecher had produced at the last meeting of Pres- 
bytery. 

Dr. Beecher replied in the affirmative. 

Dr. vVilsox then inquired of the Moderator whether Dr. 
Beecher had not said at the time that the explanation which 
he (Dr. "Wilson) had made in respect to it was satisfactory. 

Dr. Beecher said that the explanation was satisfactory 
so far as respected the sermon on native depravity, and no 
further. 

Dr. TVilsox said he had no objection to the letter being 
read, because he could make the same explanation again. 

Dr. Beecher replied that he would not make the same 
explanation, because he (Dr. Beecher) should make that 
sermon an exception. The letter now to be read had been 
addressed by a committee of the Board of Trustees of Lane 
Seminary to the church to which Dr. Beecher belonged, at 
the time he was invited to come here. It is dated on the 5th 
February; 1831. and is in the following terms : 

Cincinnati, Feb. o, 1S81. 

To the Hanover Church and Congregation : 

Beloved Brethren and Fellow-citizens : As a committee of the 
board of Lane Theological Seminary, the undersigned are called upon to 
address yon in behalf of that institution. [The letter proceeds to state 
reasons, drawn from a general view of the wants of the West, for the erec- 
tion of the seminary, no. It then proceeds :] 



188 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Having presented this general view of the character, claims and 
prospects, of our seminary, permit us, dear brethren and friends, to 
specify a few particular reasons why Dr. Beecher is called, by Divine 
Providence, and the great interests of the Church, to this institution. 

1. The strongest convictions of many of our wisest and best men, east 
and west of the mountains, that the great interests of the Church, and 
especially of the West, require Dr. Beecher's labors at the head of our 
seminary. A large number of our ministerial and lay brethren have 
expressed their deliberate conviction that the enterprise of building up a 
great central theological institution at Cincinnati, — soon to become the 
great Andover or Princeton of the West, and to give character to hundreds 
and thousands of ministers which may issue from it, — is one of the most 
important and responsible in which the Church is ever called to engage ; 
and that no man in our country, in many important respects, is so well 
fitted to give character, energy and success, to such an institution, as Dr. 
Beecher. Never has the presentation of a similar subject excited more 
deep and lively interest, and called forth a more general and cordial 
approbation among the friends of religion ak the East and the West, than 
by the announcement of Dr. Beecher's appointment as our president and 
theological professor, and the consequent prospect of our securing ample 
funds for the endowment of the institution. This voice of public opinion, 
and of the ministers of the Church of Christ, we think is to be regarded 
as no unimportant indication of the will of Providence in this matter. 

2. Dr. Beecher's well-known standing and well-known reputation at the 
West, as well as the East, will make his labors of incalculable import- 
ance to our seminary. * * * Nor is it a consideration of small 
importance, that Dr. Beecher's habits of rigorous exercise and labor would 
exert a most powerful practical influence in giving increased reputation 
and popularity among the community generally. 

3. * * * The Church is now, doubtless, entering into the most event- 
ful period of her most glorious enterprise, in speedily sending the Gospel to 
every creature, and subjugating the world to the Prince of Peace. To 
accomplish this great work, we want, indeed, hundreds and thousands of 
additional laborers ; but we need, more especially, in the character of those 
who come forth, to see men of higher and holier enterprise than most of us 
who have entered the ministry. Do we not need, and must we not have, 
if the millennium is ever to come, men of evangelical and deep-toned piety; 
baptized into the spirit of revivals, — possessing clear and discriminating 
•views of divine truth, v — despising the compromising spirit of worldly pru- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



189 



dence, — fearless and firm in their attacks upon the strong-holds of infidel- 
ity and thfl devil ; men who should be fully up to, or rather far in advance 
of, the spirit of the age, in Christian enterprise and action, and men whose 
whole souls are absorbed in the great work of converting the world ? And 
how, dear brethren and friends, can we so effectually rear up such men, as 
by putting them under the instruction of one whose spirit shall become 
theirs, and who, without invidious comparisons, has no superior, in the 
characteristics now mentioned, in this or any other portion of Christen- 
dom ? 

"When we reflect how much has been accomplished, and is now doing, for 
the salvation of our country and the world, by one such spirit as Beecher, 
we feel that the Church will be deprived of his most important services and 
influence, unless he is permitted to impress the important lineaments of 
his character upon the rising ministers of the West. 

4. The influence which Dr. Beecher would be able to exert in our city 
and the surrounding country, as a preacher, renders his labors at this 
point peculiarly important and desirable. It is well known that Cincinnati 
now contains about thirty thousand inhabitants, &c. * * * While train- 
ing up young men for the ministry where their influence on the city "will be 
powerfully felt, the contiguity of our seminary to the city will enable the 
doctor to preach the Gospel to the population as extensively and power- 
fully, and, we doubt not, as successfully, as at any former period of his 
ministry. Who, then, would not rejoice to see Dr. Beecher double his 
influence and usefulness, by giving character and prominence to a great 
theological seminary, while powerfully wielding at the same time the 
sword cf truth against the augmenting powers of darkness in our city and 
surrounding country ? 

5. The deep and general interest which would be awakened at the East, 
in behalf of the West, by the removal of Dr. Beecher to our seminary, con- 
stitutes, in our estimation, an urgent reason for his acceptance of our call. 
We all thank God and take courage, in view of the interest which has been 
excited, and the effort made at the East in behalf of the West within the 
last few years. * * &c. What, then, do we ask, can be done now for 
the West, &c. ? We answer, let hundreds and thousands of pious and intel- 
ligent families from the East, with the spirit of missionaries, scatter them- 
selves over all the towns and villages of our great valley, without delay. 
* * * Do you ask how the interest, necessary to bring them on the 
ground, can be excited? We reply, let it be known that Dr. Beecher 
is really going into this field of labor himself ; that, in entering upon the 



190 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



work, he is willing to lead the way ; and, as he passes over the Alleghanies, 
let him pass through the old states, and beat up for volunteers in this truly 
Christian crusade against the infidels. And, when the East feels sufficient 
interest in the salvation of the West to send to her aid, not merely a few of 
the young and inexperienced subalterns, but some of her most distin- 
guished generals, it will be felt that the warfare in which we are engaged 
is one which must soon give liberty and happiness, or despotism and ruin, 
to our country ; nor will men nor resources be wanting to achieve a speedy 
and triumphant victory. 

The last reason we shall mention for Dr. Beecher's connection with our 
institution is, that the security of the funds pledged on this condition, and 
the consequent existence and prosperity of the seminary, depend upon it. 
* # * The professorships, amounting, in all, to fifty thousand dollars, 
are nearly secured, on condition that Dr. Beecher becomes our professor, 
and that we at the West raise from ten thousand to twenty thousand dol- 
lars more for buildings, &c. These funds, thus liberally offered to us, are 
to be given on account of the special confidence which the donors place in 
Dr. Beecher, to preside over and give character and success to our semi- 
nary, &c. By a Committee of the Board : 

J. L. "Wilson, ( Signed by me, at 
J. Gallaher, < their request, 
F. Y. Vail, ( F. Y. Vail. 

It is proper I should state that Dr Wilson declared that he 
had not seen my sermon on the Native Character of Man at 
the time this letter was written ; but he certainly had a full 
knowledge of my sentiments on the subject of natural ability 
so long before as the year 1817, when he had a conversation 
with me on that subject. 

Dr. Beecher, having no further testimony to adduce, now 
entered upon his defence, and spoke substantially as follows : 

I have two causes of embarrassment in entering upon this 
subject. I know that I am liable to be regarded as a stranger, 
thrust in upon the quiet and comfort of a venerable patriarch, 
who had borne the heat and burden of the day ; and vexing 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



191 



his righteous soul by obtruding upon him my own novel 
crudities and heresies. And, in the second place. I am also 
aware that it may be said that ever since I came here there 
has been nothing but quarrelling in the "churches of the 
West : and that so it will be all the time I stay here.'' To 
this my answer is. that as to my being an intruder, this good 
brother himself called me to come here, and in so doing acted, 
as he thought, in obedience to God's high command : and, in 
obedience to what I understood to be the manifested will of 
Heaven. I came. I am not an intruder. I left all that man 
can hold dear, in respectful estimation and the sympathies of 
friendship, and came to this place, expecting the warm bosom 
and surrounding arms of this, my venerable brother. All I 
shall say is. that my reception was not such as I had antici- 
pated. I regret exceedingly that I am compelled by a sense 
of duty to refer to the manner in which I was received and 
treated by him. And here let me say. that if this matter had 
respected myself alone, as a private individual, no mortal 
would ever have heard a word upon the subject from my lips. 
But I am not my own. My character and influence belong 
to Christ: and. if I have not done evil, I have no right to per- 
mit them to be suspected. And, if my brother, with ever so 
good intentions, has done me wrong, if he has broken the arm 
of my influence as a man associated with an important public 
institution, and with the Christian cause generally, it is clue 
to that cause, and to the responsible station I occupy, that I 
should endeavor to save myself, although the mode is most 
painful to me. as I fear it will prove to him. I would thank 
the clerk to read a few extracts from the paper called the 
Standard, a religious periodical published in this city. The 
articles are subscribed with the initials J. L. W. 

[Some difficulty occurring in turning to the extracts. Dr. 



192 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Beecher waived his call for the reading of them, and pro- 
ceeded with the body of his defence.] 

If Dr. Wilson, after having invited me to settle in this city, 
became possessed of information which led him to believe that 
I ought not to accept the call which had been put into my 
hands, Christian courtesy and sincerity required of him that 
he should inform me of such change in his opinion, and frankly 
avow the intended change of his course in regard to me. If 
he had done so, I would have gone to him and wept upon his 
bosom, in view of such openness and integrity. But he never 
did it. When he opposed my admission into the Presbytery, 
I expressed my confidence that I could explain my views and 
doctrinal opinions satisfactorily to him ; and we had an inter- 
locutory meeting of Presbytery for that purpose. But it did 
not result as I had expected. After that, I told Dr. Wilson 
repeatedly that he misunderstood" my views in respect to 
original sin. For I perfectly well knew that I held opinions 
on that subject which he thought I did not hold ; and, on the 
contrary, that I did not hold certain other opinions which he 
thought I did hold. And I asked him whether it would not 
be better for us mutually to explain, and endeavor to come to 
a satisfactory understanding, than at our time of life to agitate 
the community with controversy, and run the risk of breaking 
up the peace of the Church. Dr. Wilson replied, that when 
men had reached our period of life their opinions were suffi- 
ciently known ; and he has never permitted me to enjoy the 
opportunity of one word of explanation, from that time to this. 
Now, I freely admit that he had a perfect right to change his 
opinion in regard to me, and the expediency of my settlement 
here. But he had not a right, in utter recklessness of my 
personal feelings, and the impairing of my ministerial useful- 
ness, to drag me before the public, at my time of life, after I 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



193 



had served God and the Church so many years, and must soon 
go to give in my account. It was wrong, very wrong, in my 
brother, to tear me up after this sort. 

The doctrines charged upon me are not recent. I am not 
accused of apostasy from opinions once received and professed, 
nor of innovation in the introduction of notions till now unheard 
of. The doctrines I maintain existed in the Presbyterian 
Church before I was born. I was ordained, on examination, 
and on a profession of that same faith for holding and pub- 
lishing which I am now to be tried as a heretic. In the 
Presbytery which ordained me there were men of the old and 
of what was then called the new divinity (though it was thirty- 
five years ago), and the vote for my ordination was unanimous ; 
and I was accordingly ordained by the Presbytery of Long 
Island. I do not say that I subscribed the Confesssion of 
Faith at that time, under the declaration that it contained the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I was not 
prepared at that time to say so. I had not then studied it 
enough, nor had I been enough charged with heresy, to give 
keenness to my investigation of its meaning. I signed it, as 
all other ministers in the Church sign it, as containing, " the 
systems of doctrine taught in the holy Scriptures:" and I 
subscribed it sincerely. 

The doctrines on which I am accused are not matters of 
mere metaphysical speculation : but they are truths of which 
I find it necessary to make a constant use in the performance 
of my pastoral and ministerial duties ; and which, of all 
others, I have found most efficacious in producing conviction 
of sin, and the conversion of souls to God. It has no doubt 
been necessary to guard against the perversion of these doc- 
trines, as it is in regard to all other doctrines : for, as Horace 
says. If the vessel be not clean, whatever you pour into it 

vol. in. 17 



194 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



will turn to vinegar." But ministers, surely, are not respons- 
ible for all that perversion of the truth they preach of which 
others are often guilty. I do not regard myself as standing 
here as an insulated individual suspected of heresy. I do 
not believe I am suspected of heresy. Dr ever have been, to 
any considerable extent. I do not feel as if I stood here 
alone, to be sifted and scrutinized, to see whether I am worthy 
of a standing in the Church, or ought to be excommunicated 
as a heretic. I am one of many who believe the same doc- 
trines that I do. And if any man shall be enabled to make the 
truths of the Gospel tell with greater effect on the hearts and 
consciences of sinners than I have made them tell, I will bless 
God for it. No man shall be envied by me because his 
ministry has been more successful than my own. My heart, 
I trust, will ever be a stranger to any such feelings. 

The charges against me are heresy, slander, and hypocrisy ; 
but they all turn on the charge of heresy. For, if the doctrines 
I teach are according to the Word of God and the Confession 
of Faith, then I am neither a slanderer nor a hypocrite. It 
is said that I have professed to agree with the standards of 
our Church, and yet know that profession to be false ; while 
I, on the contrary, say that I dd concur with those standards 
as I understand them. If I have mistaken their meaning, still 
the charge is not sustained. Ah ! Sir, there must be some 
eye which can look in here [laying his hand on his bosom], or 
there must be some clear evidence outside, before it may be 
said that I have told a lie. I said that I believed, on further 
inquiry, and I believe it now, that on the points involved in 
this controversy our Confession of Faith contains the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If I was guilty 
of hypocrisy in making that declaration before the Synod, I 
now repeat the offence. I may find out that on some points 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



195 



I have mistaken his meaning ; and, if I do, I will say so. 
But I am honest in my past and present declarations. 

The topics of my alleged heresy respect, 

1st. The foundation of moral obligation ; or the natural 
ability of man as a free agent, and subject of moral govern- 
ment, to obey the Gospel. 

2d. The moral inability of man, as a sinner entirely de- 
praved, to do anything which includes evangelical obedience 
and secures pardon and eternal life ; as consisting entirely in his 
will, or obstinate, voluntary aversion from God and the Gospel. 

3d. The origin of this moral impotency ; or the relation 
between Adam and his posterity, and the effecton them of 
his sin. 

4th. The properties of all personal sin as voluntary. 

5th. The efficient and instrumental cause, and the conse- 
quences of regeneration. 

6 th. . The nature of Christian character as complex or 
perfect. 

My first reply, then, to these several charges of doctrinal 
heresy, is that w T hat I have believed, and have taught on 
these points through all my public ministry, is neither heresy 
nor error, but is in accordance with the Word of God and the 
Confession of Faith. 

My second reply is, that if in any respect they differ from 
what shall be decided to be the true exposition of the Confes- 
sion of Faith, they include nothing at variance with the funda- 
mental articles of the system of doctrine it contains ; and are 
such as have characterized the members of the Presbyterian 
Church from the beginning, and have been recognized in 
various forms as not inconsistent with subscription to the Con- 
fession, and an honest and honorable standing in the Church. 

Before I proceed, it will be necessary to say a word about 



196 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



creeds, and subscription to creeds, and the rights of private 
interpretation and free inquiry. 

i 1. And, first, they are not a substitute for the Bible, but a 
concise epitome of what is believed to be the meaning of the 
Bible. 

2. They originate from the discrepancies of human opinion, 
and the necessity of united views within certain limits, in 
order to complacency, confidence and practical cooperation. 
Generally they do not aim at a verbal and exact and universal 
agreement ; but so far as affords evidence of Christian charac- 
ter, and lays a foundation for united action. The attempt of 
universal and exact conformity must split the Church up into 
small and consequently feeble and impotent departments, and 
of course weaken her associated power and moral influence. 

i Whatever differences of opinion do not destroy the unity of 
the Spirit in the bond of peace, and are consistent with fel- 
lowship and cooperation, may be tolerated ; and hence you find 
that in proportion as you insist upon specific accuracy you 
render your denomination small and insignificant, in com- 
parison with the numbers and the wealth, and the amount of 
influence and moral power in society, which it ought to em- 
brace ; and thus prevent that momentum for good which the 
collected body ought to exert. The true policy, and that which 
has been pursued, is to push the requirement of conformity 
only so far as will enable the masses of men combined under 
the same profession of truth to be large and weighty, to have 
power and effect in giving a healthy tone to public sentiment, 
and carry forward the great designs which the Gospel was 
intended to accomplish in the world. 

3. Churches of every name are voluntary associations, and, 
on the principles of civil and religious liberty, have a right 
to agree in respect to the doctrine and discipline by which 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



197 



they will promote their own edification. The exclusion is no 
encroachment on the rights of others. Those who differ from 
me in sentiment have no right to be judges of my liberty, or 
to encroach on my comfort, edification or useful action ; but 
may seek their own edification with others who agree with 
them in their own way. This is the origin of different de- 
nominations, and indispensable in order to practical and 
efficient action. 

4. The exposition of our Confession of Faith appertains, of 
necessity, in the first instance, to those who subscribe it, and 
are bound by it. Each subscriber must, for himself, attach 
some definite import to the terms, and all have an equal right 
to their own interpretation in the first instance, and no 
individual has any authority to decide, efficaciously, in respect 
to his brother, what is the plain and obvious sense ; but, in 
cases of difference, attended with inconvenience, it is to be 
referred to the higher judicatories, and their decision settles 
the construction, — just as every man judges for himself of the 
laws, and of his own rights of property, until discrepant 
claims demand a reference to the courts for an authoritative 
exposition of the law. The decision of the highest judicatory 
is the meaning of the Bible according to the intent of those 
who agree to walk together. I certainly have no right, in 
the exercise of my philosophy, or biblical exposition, or free 
inquiry, to set it aside. If I change my opinions so as to 
interfere with the bond of union, it is my right to leave the 
Church : but I have no right by my liberty to make inroads 
on the peace and edification of others. 

^ In respect to the right of private interpretation, in the first 
instance. I presume I must have misunderstood my brother 
Wilson when he says the Confession is not to be explained. 
That is popery. The papists have no right of private judg- 
vol. nr. 17* 



198 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



merit. They must believe as the Pope and council believe, 
and may believe no otherwise. They are forbidden to exer- 
cise their own understanding, and must receive words and 
doctrines in the sense prescribed and prepared for them. I 
cannot suppose my brother so holds ; but that when he sub- 
scribes the Confession, he subscribes to what, at the time, he 
understands to be its meaning. Who else is to judge for him 1 
Is the Pope to be called in? Is he to ask a General Council 
what the Confession means ? Does he not look at it with his 
own eyes, and interpret it with his own understanding % But, 
as I understand my brother, he insists that there is to be no 
explanation, but that every expression of doctrinal sentiment 
is to be placed side by side with the Confession, and measured 
by it : just as you would put two tables side by side, to see if 
they are of the same size. You are to try the sermon and 
the Confession by the ear } and see? if they sound alike. If 
they do not, the sermon is heretical, and the author a heretic. 
Can this be his meaning ? 

It is admitted that the Church is a voluntary association. 
None are obliged to join it. But, under affinity of views and 
sentiments, a number of individuals come together to form 
themselves into one body. How are they to find out what opin- 
ions they do hold ? It must be by giving an account of \?hat 
each man understands to be religious truth revealed from God. 
If they have no standard, they proceed to form one ; or, if 
one has been formed, they look over it together to see whether 
they agree with it, and if they do so agree, they make this 
standard the symbol of their faith, and thus become affiliated 
with other churches holding the same opinions. I admit that 
when they have thus examined, explained, and assented to a 
common standard, they are bound by it ; and if any one alters 
his opinion afterwards to such an extent that the community 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



199 



becomes dissatisfied, — to such an extent as to break the bond 
of union, and be unable any longer to walk with his brethren, 
— he must withdraw ; or. if he refuses to withdraw, he must 
be put out. In joining the Presbyterian Church, each indi- 
vidual member — unless he comes in as an ignoramus, with- 
out knowing what he professes — does explain her standards 
for himself. He must do it, and he has a right to do it, 
unless his joining the Church means nothing and professes 
nothing. If it does mean anything, it must mean to him what 
he understands it to mean; and of this he. must, in the first 
instance, be himself the judge. This is the sixth time I have 
endeavored to explain my meaning on this subject; and I 
have been constantly told that I am teaching Independency. 
I deny that it is Independency, and insist that it is Presby- 
terianism and common sense. I say that each minister and 
each member has as good a right to his own exposition of the 
common standard as another has ; and so I told my brother 
Wilson. I have as good a right to call you a heretic, because 
your exposition of the Confession does not agree with my view 
of it, as you have to call me a heretic, because my understand- 
ing of the Confession does not agree with yours. You say that 
I am a heretic according to the plain and obvious meaning of 
our standards. But your " plain and obvious meaning" is 
not my " plain and obvious meaning;' 7 and w T ho is to be 
umpire between us? The constitution has provided one. 
My brother Wilson and I must go to the Presbytery. I have 
no right to traduce my brother, and call him a heretic, on the 
authority of my private personal interpretation of an instru- 
ment we both profess to embrace; nor has he any right, 
before I have been heard and judged by competent authority, 
to vilify my character, to attack my good name, to drag me 
into the public prints, and to use his long-established and 



200 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



broadly-extended influence to bring up a fog of suspicion 
around me. For, what is the character of a minister of Jesus 
Christ? It is like the character of a female, liable to be 
tainted and ruined by the breath of slander. What is more 
natural to mankind than suspicion ? How ready men are to 
entertain an uncharitable suggestion, or an evil report, come 
from what source it may ! But, when suggestions not only, 
but direct assertions, proceed not from an obscure or sus- 
pected source, but come from years and experience, and high 
standing t and wide-spread influence, what stranger can ' come 
and hope to stand before it ? In the form of responsible 
accusation it might be met ; but who can stand before the 
force of slander ? 

Sir, I made no statements about a loss of reputation ; I 
simply told the truth in respect to what this my brother has 
done, and the manner in which he* treated me, after having 
first invited me into a strange place. I came here on his 
invitation, an entire stranger : and, instead of receiving me 
into the open arms of brotherly affection ; instead of welcom- 
ing and sustaining and strengthening me, as a fellow-laborer 
in a common cause ; instead of conciliating the public con- 
fidence ; instead of soothing, and comforting, and seeking to 
encourage and warm my heart, in a great and arduous 
undertaking, in an untried field, — he did what in him lay to 
weaken my hands, to discourage my heart, and to multiply a 
thousand-fold those difficulties which were inseparable from 
my situation, and thus to thwart every good and holy end for 
which I believed that God had called me into this Western 
world. He had a perfect right, as I have freely admitted, on 
proper evidence, to change the good opinion he had at first 
entertained of me ; but, then, he should have come to me in 
frankness, he should have taken me by the hand, and he 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



201 



should have said to me: " My brother, I have changed my 
opinion in respect to your doctrinal views. I believe them to 
be essentially erroneous ; and I must, in the discharge of a 
good conscience,"' — do what ? Go to the newspapers? 
assail you before the public ] represent you as a heretic ? cut 
up your influence ? tie your hands from doing good 1 No ; 
I must " bring you to the Presbytery. I must prefer charges 
against you, and I must have a decision in respect to the 
opinions you hold.*' Had he done this, — had my brother 
met me so, — I would have honored him, I would have wept 
upon his bosom for his brotherly frankness, blended with 
unblenching integrity. 

And now, as to what has been said about perpetual quar- 
rels in this Presbytery, I deny the fact. We have had no 
quarrels. There has not an unkind word passed between my 
brother Wilson and myself, nor have I any knowledge that 
he entertains towards me the least personal animosity; 
although I admit that when two walk so contrary to each 
other, they are in danger of it. Our differences are Ecclesi- 
astical only ; and I am always wounded when I hear it said 
that we have quarrelled. When I came here and perceived 
that ministerial disputation had got into the public papers, my 
whole influence was exerted to silence the paper controversy ; 
and it was done. And, although there was much in the 
opposing paper that was grievous to be borne ; although 
advantage was taken of the prejudices which prevailed in the 
West against men coming from the Eastern part of the Union; 
and although strenuous efforts were employed to stir up that 
feeling, and direct it against myself and my ministry ; and 
although broad caricatures were given of the doctrines I held 
and openly taught,— I never wrote so much as a line or a word 
in reply ; but. when I discovered that the chafing of mind 



202 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



inevitably produced by these things was finding its way into 
my church, — when I saw the fire rapidly spreading, and like 
to break out, and to embroil my brother's people and mine 
in open animosities, — my friends know that I prepared and 
preached two sermons on the obligation of Christian meek- 
ness ; and they can testify that the effort was blessed of God, 
and that there was a great calm. It was, to be sure, impos- 
sible but that some excitement should exist, when the minis- 
ters of the two churches stood in such an attitude toward 
each other ; but from that time the amount was very small 
and inconsiderable ; and the rumor that we, in this city, were 
together by the ears, contending and fighting and quarrelling, 
was false and unfounded. All who are present can bear me 
witness that no such spirit prevailed. The people were quiet, 
the ministers were personally courteous ; all was visible peace 
until the time came round for the Presbytery to assemble. 
But no sooner was it met, than the angels might weep. 
Brotherly confidence had fled. That sweet and fraternal 
harmony, which ever ought to mark the gatherings of 
Christ's ministerial servants, was gone. The breath of the 
Almighty was not upon us. The saints were not refreshed ; 
sinners were not converted. Our coming together was not 
for the better, but always for the worse. But now I pray 
God that the result of this examination may be such as to 
put an end forever to this state of things ; that it may issue 
in reestablishing our mutual confidence in each other's sound- 
ness and integrity ; or, if I am a heretic, that the fact may 
be proved, and I may go to my own place. 

But, to return to the question respecting the right of 
private interpretation. If two ministers do not agree in 
their understanding of the Confession of Faith, let them not 
contend, and call hard names, and bite and devour each other ; 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



203 



but let them go before the Presbytery, and, if not satisfied 
there, let them go to the Synod ; and, if the sentence of the 
Synod cannot quiet the minds, let them carry up the question 
to the General Assembly, and then- the man who is wrong, 
and perseveres in being »wrong, must go out of the Church. 
We are not without a remedy. The constitution has provided 
for us a competent tribunal. The ministers who differ come 
before that tribunal on equal ground ; the cause is heard, 
and the question settled ; and he who will not submit to the 
sentence must leave the body. It is, as I said, just like the 
rights of property. Two men think that they own a certain 
portion of lands or goods, and both suppose that they have 
good and valid reasons for that opinion ; but, instead of revil- 
ing each, or coming to blows, they take their difference before 
the court, and each has a right to carry it up by appeal, till 
he reaches the tribunal of last resort ; and there the matter is 
settled. Now, I hope that on this subject I shall never, be 
misunderstood again. I have done my best to make my 
meaning plain ; and, if I am still misunderstood, I must 
despair of ever being able to remove the misunderstanding. 
This is my sixth public Effort to do so. ' If this does not 
succeed, I must give up the attempt. 

The question now at issue turns, then, upon an exposition 
of the Confession of Faith, not merely as a human formula, 
but as our admitted epitome of what the Bible teaches. I 
am charged with a fundamental departure from the true 
latent of the Confession. I claim that I understand and 
interpret it truly ; or that, if there be any variation, it effects 
only such points of difference as have in every form been 
decided to be consistent with edification and an honest sub- 
scription and an honorable standing in the Church. The 
Confession is not a mere human composition. The statement, 



204 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



indeed, is made by man; but it is the statement of what God 
has said, and is to us who receive it as God's word. Dr. 
Wilson has said that we are bound to abide by it so far as it 
is consistent with God's Word ; but we have settled that, in 
receiving it as the symbol of our faith. We profess that it is 
in all its parts according to God's Word. What is its true 
sense is, in case of dispute, to be settled by the courts above ; 
but we have agreed to submit to it and be bound by it ; and 
if we do not like the final decision of the supreme judicatory, 
no course is left but to go out of the Church. For — to a 
man remaining in its fellowship — I deny and repudiate all 
right of private judgment, in opposition to the public decision 
of the whole Church. 

The whole of the argument on which I am now to enter is 
an argument that has respect to ihe true exposition of our 
Confession of Faith. The argument will take a wide range ; 
but it is all directed to that point. And I am sorry that the 
point on which the whole turns my brother Wilson did not 
attempt to explain. He assumed that there is but one mean- 
ing to the term ability. This I deny. I hold, on the con- 
trary, that it has two meanings, as well in the Bible as in our 
standards. He admits only one. His labor, therefore, has 
been labor lost, as it respects me. He admits one sense of 
the term ; but, if our standards admit two, then he has got but 
one part of the truth ; while I contend that I have got both 
parts of it, and that therefore his argument falls short of the 
case. It is not my purpose to declaim on a topic like this. 
I feel that the providence of God has brought both my brother 
and myself into circumstances of the deepest responsibility. 
It is my hope that this trial will be made the occasion, in His 
hand, of dissipating mutual misapprehension, and of bringing 
forth his own precious truth into clearer light, and establishing 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



205 



it in a more triumphant and unanswerable manner. I will 
not disguise the fact that I hope to convince those who have 
hitherto thought with my brother. I will neither believe nor 
insinuate that the minds of this Presbytery are so biased 
that they cannot give an upright judgment. I do not think 
Dr. Wilson himself meant to convey such an idea. I do 
expect to convince every minister and every elder, and I am 
almost sure I shall do it. I rest not this confidence upon 
myself, but upon the cause I advocate. I cherish the hope, 
because I know what truth is, and what human nature is ; and 
I am perfectly sure that when the question comes to be fairly 
stated and distinctly understood, there is no man here who 
will say I am guilty of heresy. I will even go further than 
this, and say that I expect to convince my brother Wilson 
himself ; and I have told him so. ! if he would but have 
given me a chance to do so two years ago ! How would our 
hands have been mutually strengthened, and how might the 
cause of truth and righteousness have been advanced by our 
united efforts ! I mourn to think how we have both suffered 
from the want of such an explanation. I grieve to reflect 
upon the pulling down, and the holding back, and all the want 
of cordial and brotherly cooperation. And I do trust that God 
has brought us to this point that all the misunderstanding 
may be cleared up, and all misrepresentation forever cease. 
I shall labor for this end as hard as ever I labored with a 
convicted sinner to bring him to the Lord my Master ; and I 
hope I shall succeed. 

I am very sensible that I have undertaken a great work, in 
attempting to convince my brother on this subject. And I am 
aware that it is incumbent on me to go to the business wit- 
tingly ; and I mean to. The task of expounding important 
doctrinal truth is not a light, extempore affair. Just exposi- 

VOL. III. 18 



206 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



tion is regulated by fixed laws, laws as fixed as those which 
regulate the motions of the universe ; because they are^founded 
in truth, and in the nature of things. And what are these 
rules and principles ? 

1. The first is that no writing or instrument of any kind 
is to be expounded in contradiction to itself. So that, if there 
are two possible interpretations, that which harmonizes the 
instrument with itself is to be received as the true interpreta- 
tion. For it is not to be presumed that a company of pious 
and sensible men, with full deliberation and under the highest 
responsibility, will draw up a paper which contradicts itself. 
They may through infirmity do this, but no such presumption 
is to be admitted, a priori. 

2. The instrument is to be explained according to the 
known nature and attributes of 4he subject. Thus, when 
man is spoken of in terms borrowed from the natural world, 
and these terms, literally received, would imply impotency, 
we are not to carry over their physical meaning into the 
moral kingdom. When God says he will take away the heart 
of stone, if he was speaking of a mountain we might well 
understand that he meant to remove the granite which was 
in the midst of it. But when he applies this language to a 
moral being, to a free agent, the language is not to be taken 
as literal, but as figurative ; and as meaning to take away a 
moral quality, namely, hatred to God and aversion to his law. 

3. The instrument is to be construed with reference to 
controversies and import of terms which prevailed at the time 
it was written, and the meaning of theological technics em- 
ployed in them. 

Dr. Wilson has gone to Johnson's dictionary to find out the 
meaning of theological terms. But he ought to have remem- 
bered that there are few dictionaries which undertake to define 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY 



207 



the meaning of either theological or of law terms. The 
technics of one are as much out of the ordinary road as those 
of the other. Physicians would not expect to find in an 
ordinary dictionary the definition of medical words ; and the 
same holds of every profession. They all have technics of 
their own, for which you go in vain to a general dictionary. 
I say you must go to the time when the instrument was 
written, and inquire what was then the import of the technical 
'words and phrases employed in the instrument to be ex- 
pounded. So, if we would understand the Confession of Faith, * 
we must find out in what sense the words ££ guilt " and " pun- 
ishment " were employed by the theologians of that day. For 
a right explication of those terms will go far towards settling 
the meaning of the whole Confession. Dr. Wilson cannot but 
know that language never stands still, because society never 
stands still. The meaning of a word at this day is not neces- 
sarily the same with the meaning of that word two hundred 
years ago ; and so every sound lawyer will tell you. They 
have to go back to the days of Judge Hale and Queen 
Elizabeth. It will not do to go to Webster's dictionary at 
this day, if we would rightly interpret ancient statutes ; no 
more will it do in respect to the Confession of Faith. 

4. It must be interpreted by a comparison with anterior 
and cotemporaneous creeds and authors : in a word, by the 
theological usus loquendi of the age ; because this is according 
to analogy. The Keformers were all the same sort of men ; 
they were all, with some slight variation, placed in substantially 
the same circumstances, and it is wonderful to see how much 
alike the creeds adopted in different parts of Christendom were. 
Now, if the ancient meaning of terms be in any case different 
"from the meaning of the same terms in our day, the ancient 
meaning cuts its way. For our creeds were born of them. 



208 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



And that sense of terms, which was the analogical meaning of 
those who had all around them the authors of cotemporaneous 
creeds, must be our guide in construction. 

5. The instrument must be interpreted according to the 
reigning philosophy of the day in which it was written ; and 

6. According to the intuitive perceptions and the common 
sense and consciousness of all mankind. 

To illustrate the propriety of this rule, let me give an 
example. I know that there is a propensity to reject all 
philosophy when we come to the subject of creeds ; and yet 
there is not a human being that does not necessarily employ 
a philosophy of some sort in interpreting the Bible, and in 
interpreting every creed founded upon it. The New Testa- 
ment cannot rightly be understood without a knowledge of the 
philosophy of the Gnostics. And, hi like manner, a man must 
know what was the philosophy of the Armenian system, in 
order rightly to apprehend that portion of the creed which 
relates to that subject. I will only say, in respect to the 
intuitive perceptions of men as a rule of exposition, that it is 
God who made men, and that he made both their body and 
their mind ; and the Bible, without entering on a system 
of pathology, everywhere takes it for granted that God 
thoroughly understands human nature. And here I will 
observe incidentally, that it is a good way, and one of the best 
ways, to study mental philosophy, to collect from the Bible 
that which it assumes ; and this was the only way in which I 
first studied it. In Conclusion, I observe that to enter upon 
the Confession of Faith, for the purpose of exposition, without 
these attendant lamps, is to insure misinterpretation and con- 
tention and every evil work. 

I commence with the subject of Free Agency, or the 
Natural Ability of Man, as the foundation of obligation and 
moral government. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY, 



209 



I begin with this first because, as Dr. Wilson has said, it is 
" the hinge of the whole controversy.' 7 This is eminently true. 
It is the different theories of free agency and accountability 
which have, in all ages, agitated the Church. There is not a 
discussion about doctrine, at this time, in the Presbyterian 
Church, which does not originate in discrepant opinions 
respecting the created constitutional powers of man as a free 
agent, and the grounds of moral obligation and personal 
accountability. Settle the philosophy of free agency. — what 
are the powers of a free agent. — how they are put together, 
and how they operate in personal accountable action, — and 
controversy among all the friends of Christ will cease. It 
has been often said that it never can be settled. I believe 
no such thing. The perplexities of the schoolmen are passing 
away, and the symptoms of approximation to an enlightened 
and settled opinion among all evangelical denominations are 
beginning to appear. I have no discoveries to publish on this' 
subject. — no favorite views of my own to propagate. It has 
been my great desire to finish my course and keep the faith 
without any. The doctrines of free agency and natural 
ability, which I hold and advocate, have been the revealed 
doctrines of the Church from the beginning. They are not 
new divinity, nor new school : and, though I am compelled 
to admit that there are some in the Church who, when they 
are correctly explained, do not hold them, the number, in my 
belief, is very small, who do not, when all misapprehension is 
removed, believe the doctrines just as I belie vq them. They 
are also fundamental doctrines, which, if misinterpreted, will 
always environ the Calvinistic system with invincible prejudice 
and odium without, and fill it with fierce conflicts within. 
But. when correctly understood, they will pour the stream of 

vol. in. 18* 



210 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



truth, pure, and full, and clear as crystal, through all the 

channels of the associated system. 

The doctrine claimed by the prosecutor as the true doctrine 
of the Confession and the Bible is, that to fallen man there 
remains no ability of any kind or degree to obey the Gospel ; 
that, though he is a free agent, it is a free agency which 
includes* no ability of any kind to obey God ; and that none 
is nece r - jry to constitute perfect obligation to obey, and per- 
fect accountability for disobedience ; — that the obligation to 
obey may be infinite, and the punishment for disobedience 
just and eternal, where the obedience claimed is a natural 
impossibility, as really as the creation of the world, or the 
raising of the dead. 

Dr. Wilson has made a distinct avowal that free agency 
and moral obligation to obey law do not include any ability 
of any kind. 

Dr. Wilson. — I limited that avowal to man in his fallen 
state. 

Dr. Beecher. — Yes, so I understood it. We are talking 
about man in his fallen state. Dr. Wilson, then, admits that 
it requires no ability of any sort, in fallen man, to make him 
an accountable agent, and a subject of God's moral govern- 
ment. 

Dr. Wilson. — With respect to fallen man, / do. 

Now, it must be admitted that in this avowal Dr. Wilson 
has the merit of magnanimous honesty. He is fairly out on 
a subject where, with many a man for an opponent, I should 
have had to ferret him out. There can, at least, be no doubt 
as to what Dr. Wilson does hold. If v/e are to go to Synod, 
this point will be clear ; and when the report is published, no 
man can misunderstand this part of it. It is seldom that we 
meet a man who would be willing to march right up to such a 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



211 



position, without winking or mystification. But Dr. Wilson 
has done it unflinchingly and thoroughly. He interprets the 
Confession of Faith and the Bible as teaching that God may 
and does command men to perform natural impossibilities, 
and justly punish them forever for not obeying, — though they 
could no more obey than they could create a world ! And he 
has riveted the matter by his mental philosophy of the will. 
Instead of supposing a mind with powers of agency, acting 
freely in view of motives, he supposes the will to be entirely 
dependent on the constitution and condition of body and mind, 
and external circumstances ; and controlled by these as abso- 
lutely as straws on the bosom of a river are controlled by the 
motions of the water. 

It is claimed, then, by the prosecutor, that the Confession 
of Faith and the Bible teach that fallen man has no ability 
of any kind to obey God, and that none is necessary to 
perfect obligation and the just desert of eternal punishment. 

Now, my alleged heresy consists in believing and teaching 
that the constitutional powers of a free agent, including the 
possibility of their correct exercise in obedience, are necessary 
to moral obligation, and to reward and punishment, under the 
benevolent, wise, and just government of God. 

And I do hold and teach, that while to a just liability to 
all the consequences of the fall on our constitution and 
character, no ability of any kind on our part to prevent or 
avert the calamity existed, or was necessary, — the evil com- 
ing on his posterity, as the curse of his disobedience through 
our relation to him as our federal head, — yet, to a personal 
accountability to law and desert of punishment, ability of some 
kind or degree is certainly indispensable. Some possibility of 
obedience in adult man is indispensable to personal obligation, 
and a just punishment for transgression. Liability to be 



212 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



involved in the consequences, natural and moral, of the con- 
duct of those who represent us, is a law of human society, 
and probably a law of the social intelligent universe, — and, 
as it existed and operated in the case of Adam and his pos- 
terity, is doubtless a wise, benevolent, and just constitution. 
But, while a liability to suffer the consequences of another's 
conduct, on the ground of a just constitution of things, 
demands no ability to avert the evil, accountability for per- 
sonal transgression does require some ability to refuse the 
evil and choose the good. There must exist the faculties and 
powers of a free agent, involving a possibility of right action. 
Faculties that can do nothing, and powers that have no rela- 
tion of a cause to its effect, — that is, action, — are nonentities. 
A free agency that cannot act at all, in any way, is no free 
agency ; and a free agency that has no power of a right 
action is, in that respect, no free agency. There must be an 
agent qualified to act as he is required to act, — something 
in his constitution which qualifies him to be governed by law, 
and rewards and punishments, — as matter and animals are 
not qualified. There must be something which qualifies for 
obedience, and creates obligation which renders obedience 
possible ; and makes it reasonable that it should be rendered 
and rewarded, and just that disobedience should be punished. 

Now, I have taught, and I do hold, with our Confession, that 
the mind of man, though in. a fallen state, is still endued by 
its Creator u with that natural liberty that it is neither forced, 
nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to do good 
or evil, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature," — i 
nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes (that is, the 
power of the soul to choose life or death in the view of motives) 
taken away, but rather established. This is what I mean, and 
all I mean, by the natural ability of man to obey the Gospel. 



I 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



213 



Material causes, while upheld by Heaven, are adequate to 
their proper effects : and the mind of man. though fallen, is, 
while upheld, a cause of action sufficient in respect to the pos- 
sibility of obedience, to create infinite obligation to obey. The 
fall perverted, but did not destroy, the free agency of man. 
It perverted the use of his powers in action, but did not de- 
stroy the existence of those powers which distinguish man as 
a subject of moral government from animals, and which lie at 
the foundation of all obligation. This is my alleged heresy ; 
and to decide that it is a heresy is to decide that the Confes- 
sion of Faith and the Bible teach that to fallen man no ability 
of any sort is necessary to constitute infinite obligation, and a 
just desert of eternal punishment. 

But, while I thus insist on the existence of the commensu- 
rate powers 'of an agent, as essential to free agency and ac- 
countability. I do not believe, and have never taught, that 
actual obedience is essential to free agency ; or that the free 
agency which suffices to create a perfect obligation to obey 
ever suffices, without the special influence of the Holy Spirit, 
to secure in fallen man even the lowest degree of holy obe- 
dience. On the contrary, I hold and teach that such a change 
in the constitution of man was produced by the fall as creates 
a universal and prevalent propensity to actual sin, — to the 
setting of the affections on things below, and loving the creature 
more than God ; — preventing in all men the existence of 
holiness, and securing the existence of that actual depravity, 
which is enmity against God, not subject to his law, neither 
indeed can be, — a bias which neutralizes the power of truth 
and motives to reconcile men to God, till it is overcome by the 
special influence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration : and which, 
though impaired by that event, still remains in the regenerate 
until removed entirely by the Spirit, in making the soul of the 



214 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



saint meet for heaven. I only say, with our Confession, that 
this bias to actual sin acts not in the form of a coercive cause, 
creating a fatal and irresistible necessity of sinning ; and of 
course constitutes no excuse for actual sin, and no mitigation 
of the curse due to it, or abatement of God's boundless mercy 
in providing redemption for incorrigible man. This impedi- 
ment to obedience, arising from a prevalent bias of nature and 
actual aversion to spiritual obedience, is called, in the Confes- 
sion and the Bible, inability to obey, on account, as I suppose, 
of the same certainty between their existence and moral result 
that appertains to natural causes and their effects ; and it is 
called a moral inability, to indicate that, though wrong, as 
securing wrong action with unfailing certainty, it does so not 
by a fatal necessity of sinning, but by an unnecessary, un- 
reasonable, inexcusable aversion of the soul to God and his 
reasonably service. 

While I teach, therefore, the ability of man as a free agent, 
and as the ground of obligation, I teach his moral inability as 
a sinner, — the subject of the carnal mind, which is enmity 
against God, — not subject to his law, neither indeed can be. 

In the true sense of the terms as now explained, and as 
employed in the Confession, and in the Bible, and in the 
common and well-understood language of men, I teach that 
u no mere man, since the fall, has been able perfectly to keep 
the commandments of God ; and that the natural man cannot 
understand and know the things of the Spirit of God, because 
they are spiritually discerned ; and that no man can come to 
Christ, except the Father draw him." 

I proceed now to show that the preceding account of man's 
free agency, and natural ability, and of his total depravity and 
moral impotency, contains the doctrine of our Confession, and 
of the Bible. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



215 



The point at issue is not whether fallen man ever did or 
ever will act right in a spiritual sense, without the regener- 
ation of the Holy Spirit. It is admitted and insisted that he 
never did, and never will. The point at issue is, in what 
manner the certainty of the continuous wrong action of the 
mind comes to pass. Does it come to pass coerced or un- 
coerced by necessity? Does fallen man choose under the 
influence of such a constitution of body, and mind, and motive, 
that every volition bears the relation of an effect to a natural 
and necessitating cause, rendering any other choice than the 
one which comes to pass, impossible in existing circumstances ? 
Or is fallen man still an agent so constituted that in every 
act of choice he is unconstrained and uncoerced by any neces- 
sity, like that which binds natural effects to their causes ? Is 
the soul so exempt from the laws of a natural necessity that 
it is never forced to choose wrong ; there existing, in every 
case, the possibility and obligation growing out of the possibility 
of a different, or contrary choice ? The latter is the view of 
free agency and accountability which I shall endeavor to 
establish as the doctrine of th,e Confession and the Bible; 
and, 

I. There is no reason to doubt that God is able to create 
free agents, who, being sustained and placed under the illumi- 
nation and influence of his laws and perfect government, shall 
be able to obey or disobey in the regular exercise of the powers 
of their own mincl. 

The alleged impossibility of created self-existing agents, 
acting independently of God, does not touch the point ; for 
the supposition of agency able to choose the good and refuse 
the evil does not imply the mind's self-existence, but the 
efficacy of its powers while upheld ; and it might as well be 
said that God cannot create natural causes, which, while he 



216 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



upholds them, can, by their own power, produce an effect, as 
that he cannot create mind, which, while upheld by him, is 
capable of acting right or wrong, under the requirements and 
motives of his government. Both lead to Pantheism, denying 
all created causes, and making God the only cause and the 
only agent in the universe. 

There is no perceptible difficulty in creating mind, more 
than in creating matter; in creating active, than passive 
existence ; or thinking than unthinking, voluntary than in- * 
voluntary being. It is just as conceivable that God should 
create mind endowed with an energy which, while it is sus- 
tained, is commensurate to every requisite action under his 
government, by its own power ; as that he should create pas- 
sive matter, dependent for every jnovement and change on 
external causation. 

How God can originate existence of any kind is incompre- 
hensible, but no one can prove it to be impossible. The 
creation of an intelligent universe, of free, accountable minds, 
capable of all the responsibilities of a perfect, eternal govern- 
ment, is just as conceivable, therefore, as the creation of hills 
and valleys, plants and animals. 

II. If it be possible to create and govern mind upon the 
principles of free agency, and a perfect and permanent moral 
government, the presumption is strong that this is, in fact, the 
divine plan. What other conceivable course could the wisdom 
of God devise, so comprehensive of good as the creation of a 
universe of mind, with its constitutional susceptibilities, and 
active and social and voluntary powers, qualified for all the 
results of a government of perfect laws, perfectly administered? 

It is self-evident that the creation of unorganized matter 
could not illustrate the copiousness and power of the Divine 
benevolence. God might amuse himself with curious work- 



THIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



217 



manship, but how could he impart happiness to unorganized 
matter ? It is equally clear that mere animal life falls, in 
its capacity of enjoyment, unspeakably below the capabilities 
of mind. How limited is the range of the monotonous appe- 
tites ! How narrow the circle of mere fleeting, instinctive 
action ; and how feeble the momentary tie of natural affection, 
compared with its corroboration by ties of blooch, and habits of 
intercourse, and the illumination of reason, and the powers of 
memory, and the light of an anticipated eternity of unex- 
tinguished, purified, augmented and reciprocated friendship ! 

How immeasurable is that expansion of capacity in man, 
above the animal, which opens the eye of his intellect upon 
the character, will, and government of God : which brings him 
into fellowship with his Maker, and opens before him the joys 
of a blessed immortality, associated with a reasonable service, 
and benevolent activity, under the higfe and perfect guidance 
of Heaven ! 

A single MIND, through a duration which will never end, , 
may be capable of more enjoyment than it were, in the nature 
of things, possible to pour through the narrow channels of 
animal instinct and appetite. The river of pleasure is of 
course represented as flowing from the throne of God and the 
Lamb : chat is, as being the result of his intelligent creation and 
moral government : what an ocean of blessedness, compared 
to the drops of the bucket which any other conceivable mode 
of being could have received ! A universe, that can live in 
the past, present and future, and experience a copiousness 
and variety of blessedness unknown to the moping animal ! 
To have stopped at the limits of animalism, and forborne to 
create mind, would have been to prefer the ray to the sun 

the atom to the universe. It would seem to be manifest 

and certain, then, that for the most perfect manifestation of 

VOL. III. 19 



218 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



his wisdom and benevolence, the Supreme Intelligence would 
call into being around him other beings like himself, to hold 
communion with him and with one another, and after his own 
illustrious example to be made happy by their own benevolent 
activity in doing good; would create mind, and wake up 
intelligence round about his throne, for the mirrors of creation 
to throw back the light of his glory upon, — hearts to burn 
with love, and wills to obey, and energy to act, with high 
deservings of good or evil ; — a universe so powerful in intel- 
lect as to be able to look with open face and steadfast vision 
upon the strong light of his glory, and so capacious of heart 
as to be able to receive the tide of joy which his benevolence 
shall pour through the soul ; — so energetic as to sustain the 
strong emotion which his excellence produces, and to perform 
forever untiringly the glorious work of benevolence ; — and 
so free that all its actons under the guidance of law shall be 
its own, and invested with .all the attributes of a perfect ac- 
countability, which in all its consequences of good or evil 
shall reach through eternity ; social, also, we should expect 
it to be, holding affectionate communion with God and other 
minds,; capable of moral excellence, and all the fulness of 
perfect friendship and society. Obliterate conscious intelli- 
gence, and voluntariness, and accountability, from the human 
mind, — disrobe it of its spontaneous affections and mutual 
complacencies, — and you put down the race to the mere cari- 
cature of manhood. 

There must exist the power of intellect, perception, com- 
parison, judgment, conscience, affections, taste, memory, the 
discursive power of thought, the power of volition, and those 
exercises of soul which constitute personal excellence and 
inspire affection. 

It is only in the possession of these powers that individual 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



219 



happiness is enjoyed. Convince a man that he is only the 
instinctive animal of a day, and you brutalize him. We love 
and are loved, admire and are admired, we are praised or 
blamed, on the ground of a real mental energy of our own, 
capable of such high and eternal responsibilities. Blot out 
the intelligence and spontaneous affection of husband and 
wife, of parent and child, and the family is ruined ; the moral 
attractions cease, its sun goes down, and it becomes a den of 
animals. 

In the nature of things, the existence of a universe of 
mind, of free agents, of rational, social, accountable beings, 
would seem to be indispensable to the highest illustration and 
expression of the goodness of God. 

III. God has actually made free agents, who were able, in 
the exercise of their created powers, to choose either way, — 
life or death. 

This is the doctrine of our Confession and Catechisms. 
"Man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to 
will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God ; 
but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it." — Confess, ch. 
ix. sec. 2. 

" Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own 
will, fell from the state wherein they were created, by sinning 
against God." — Shorter Catechism, p. 322. 

It is the testimony of the Bible, "Lo, this only have I 
found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out 
many inventions." — Ecc. 7: 29. 

It is a part of the recorded history of the intelligent uni- 
verse, and of God's moral government, that the angels 
kept not their first estate, and that man being in honor abode 
not. 

Now, had Adam, created holy, been free to choose obedi- 



220 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



ence only, and that by a natural, constitutional, unavoidable 
necessity, so that by the power of natural causation his 
choice must be in accordance with his character and constitu- 
tion of mind, and the constitution of things around him, or the 
active principle which prevailed in his nature when volition 
took place ; how could he be said to have power to will that 
which is good, yet mutably so that he might fall from it, and 
how could he possibly fall ? But he had power to stand and 
power to fall ; and that is the essence of free agency, and was 
the ground of his accountability. 

IV. Nothing is apparent, in the nature of the fall, from 
which to infer necessarily the destruction of the constitutional 
powers of free agency in Adam or his posterity. It was an 
overt act, — an actual sin. ".In evil hour he put forth the 
hand, and plucked and ate the fruit forbidden. ?J But does 
actual sin destroy the possibility of right action ? " It creates 
aversion, — it secures the certainty, under law, of continuance 
in evil, if unreclaimed by a mediator and almighty power. But 
does it do this by a constitutional necessity, like the power of 
a natural cause to its effect ? If so, the adulterer, and the 
drunkard, and the liar, would like to alleviate their remorse, 
and quiet their fearful looking for of fiery indignation, by the 
consoling information that the more they live after the flesh, 
the deeper the oblivion of accountability, and crime, and 
punishment. 

But the Bible nowhere teaches, and the Confession ex- 
pressly denies, that Adam or his posterity lost their powers 
of agency by the fall, and became impotent to good on the 
ground of a natural impossibility of obedience. 

Did the change of character, then, which the fall occasioned, 
preclude the possibility of subsequent obedience in Adam ? 
What was the change? It was the utter loss of all holiness, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



221 



and the prevalence of entire depravity, — every imagination 
of the thoughts of his heart became evil, and only evil, con- 
tinually. But does total depravity render spiritual obedience 
a natural impossibility ? How ? Did the perfect holiness of 
Adam render sinning impossible ? How. then, did he sin? 
Did God help him? Did the devil force him? But. if per- 
fect holiness does not destroy the possibility of sinning, how 
should perfect sinfulness destroy the possibility of obedience ? 
Is there not as much in the "state of man*' as holy. " in- 
cluding all his rational, animal and moral powers, with the 
active principle which prevails in him," to make disobedience 
impossible to a holy mind, as in the same state of things in an 
unholy mind, to render obedience impossible ? But, if perfect 
holiness does not destroy the natural possibility of sinning, 
how does perfect sinfulness destroy the natural possibility of 
obedience ? And. if the fall did not destroy the natural 
powers of agency in Adam which rendered obedience possible, 
obligatory, and a reasonable service : how should it destroy in 
his posterity those powers and responsibilities which it did 
not obliterate in himself? Has the fall overacted, and come 
down with greater desolation on the represented than on the 
federal head and representative of his race J 

Y. That man possesses, since the fall, the powers of 
agency requisite to obligation, on the ground of the possibility 
of obedience, is a matter of consciousness. Not one of the 
powers of mind which constituted ability before the fall have 
been obliterated by that event. All that has ever been con- 
ceived, or that can now be conceived, as entering into the 
CQnstitution of a free agent, capable of choosing life or death, 
or which did exist in Adam when he could and did obey, yet 
mutable, survive the fall. The intellect, the conscience, the 
susceptibilities of the soul to pleasure and pain, and the heart, 

vol. in. 19* 



222 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



including the will and affections of the soul,— all these as 
certainly exist, and as plainly exist, as the five senses. 

That nothing has been subtracted by the fall from the 
powers of agency requisite to the possibility of obedience, is 
strongly evident from the fact, that no one, by the most care- 
ful analysis of the mind, has ever been able to detect and 
name the fatal deficiency. The motive to make such an 
exculpatory discovery, and throw off hated obligation and 
feared punishment, has been as powerful as the terrors of 
eternity ; and the effort as constant as the flow of ages, and 
urged with all that talent and ingenuity and learning could 
apply, and the wisdom from beneath inspire, to establish the 
excusable impotency of man ; and to this day the effort has 
been abortive. To appearance, the powers of the mind, and 
the law of God, and the glorious Gospel, and the providence 
of God, are, as they should be, to render obedience a reason- 
able service, and impenitence and unbelief without excuse ; 
and where, amid the constitutional powers of agency, the 
defect lies, has never been discovered, — what it is, has never 
been told, — or, that there is any such defect, proved. 

VI. Choice, in its very nature, implies the possibility of a 
different or contrary election to that which is made. There is 
always an alternative to that which the mind decides on, with 
the conscious power of choosing either. In the simplest form 
of alternative, it is to choose or not to choose in a given way ; 
but, in most cases, the alternatives lie between two or many 
objects of choice presented to the mind; and, if you deny to 
mind this alternative power. — if you insist that by a constitu- 
tion anterior to choice, of the nature of a natural cause pro- 
ducing its effect, the choice which takes place can come, 
and cannot but come into being, and that none other than this 
can by any possibility exist,— you have as perfect a fatality of 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



223 



choice as ever Pagan, or Atheist, or Antinomian conceived. 
The question of free will is not whether man chooses ; this is 
notorious, — none deny it ; but whether his choice is free as 
opposed to a fatal necessity, as opposed to the laws of instinct 
and natural causation; whether it is the act of a mind so 
qualified for choice, as to decide between alternatives, unco- 
erced by the energy of a natural cause necessitating its effect : 
whether it is the act of an agent who might have abstained 
from the choice he made, and made one which he did not. 
To speak of choice as being free, w T hich is produced by the 
laws of a natural necessity, and which cannot but be when 
and what it is, more than the effects of natural causes can 
govern the time, and manner, and qualities of their being, is 
a perversion of language. The doctrine of the Christian 
fathers, and of Luther and Calvin, and all the Protestant 
Confessions and standard w 7 riters ? is not merely that men act 
by volition or choice, — the choice being the effect of natural 
causes, as really i^d entirely as the falling of rain, or the 
electric spark, or the involuntary shock that attends it. They 
meant and taught that the will is high above the coercion of 
natural causation, — the fatality of the Stoics, Gnostics, 
Manicheans, or Epicureans ; that It is the action of the mind 
of an intelligent agent, free as opposed to coercion or con- 
straint ; so that if the mental decision is right, it is properly 
associated with a reward, and if wrong, with punishment, — an 
act which might, in possibility, have been refrained from, or 
resolved on, when declined. This is what our Confession 
teaches and means, when it says that " God hath endued the 
will of man with that natural liberty that it is neither forced, 
nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good 
or evil;" and that God's decrees, which extend to every 
event, " offer no violence to the will of the creature, and take 



224 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



not away, but rather establish the liberty and contingency of 
second causes;" meaning by contingency , as Dr. Twiss says 
every university scholar knows, " things which come to pass 
avoidably, and with a possibility of not coming to pass." 
This is the language of our own Confession in respect to the 
voluntary actions of men as contingent ; that is, as avoidable, 
and with a possibility of not coming to pass. To illustrate 
the fatality of an agency in which choice is the unavoidable 
effect of a natural constitutional and coercive causation, let us 
suppose an extended manufactory, all whose wheels, like 
those in Ezekiel's vision, are inspired with intelligence, and 
instinct with life, some crying holy ! holy ! as they rolled, 
and others aloud blaspheming God, — all voluntary in their 
praises and blasphemies, but the volitions, like the motions of 
the wheels themselves, produced by the great water-wheel 
and the various bands which keep {he motion and the adora- 
tion and the blasphemy a-going, — how muck accountability 
would attach to these voluntary praises a^d blasphemies pro- 
duced by the laws of water-power, and what would it avail to 
say, as a reason for justifying God in punishing these blas- 
phemies, ! but they are iree, they are voluntary, they 
choose to blaspheme ? Truly, indeed, they blaspheme volun- 
tarily ; but their choice to do so is necessary in the same 
sense that the motion of the great wheel, which the water, by 
the power of gravity, turns, is necessary, and just as desti- 
tute of accountability. 

In this account of free agency the ablest writers concur. 
Edwards says, "In every act of will whatever, the mind 
chooses one thing rather than another, the will's determining 
between the two is voluntary determining ; and to act volun- 
tarily is to act electively where things are chosen." " There 
are faculties of mind," he says, "and capacity of nature, and 



TPIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



225 



everything else sufficient but a disposition. Nothing is want- 
ing but a will." "A moral agent is a being that is capable of 
those actions that have a moral quality, and which can prop- 
erly be denominated good or evil.'* Edwards the younger 
says, " If by power be meant natural power. I grant that we 
have such a power to choose, not only one of several things 
equally eligible, if any such there be, but one of things 
ever so unequally eligible, and to take the least eligible.' 3 
Liberty or freedom must mean freedom from something; if 
it be a freedom from coaction or natural necessity, that is 
what we mean by freedom.' 7 Buck, on the article " Neces- 
sity, " says, " Necessity is, whatever is done by a cause or 
power that is irresistible, in which sense, it is opposed to free- 
dom. Man is a necessary agent, if all his actions be so 
determined, by the causes preceding each action, that not one 
past action could possibly not have come to pass, or have been 
otherwise than it hath been, nor one future action can possibly 
not come to pass, or be otherwise than it shall be. On the 
other hand, it is asserted that he is a free agent, if he be able 
at any time, under the causes and circumstances he then is, to 
do different things : or. in other words, if he be not unavoid- 
ably determined in every point of time by the circumstances 
he is in, and the causes he is under, to do any one thing he 
does, and not possibly to do any other thing/' ' And Dr. 
"Woods says, " The power of choosing right or wrong makes 
him [man] amoral agent: his actually choosing wrong makes 
him a sinner. 7 ' 

YIL Choice, without the possibility of other or contrary 
choice, is the immemorial doctrine of fatalism. 

I say not that all who assert the natural inability of man 
are fatalists. I charge them not with holding or admitting 
the consequences of their theory, and I mean nothing unkind 



226 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



or invidious in the proposition I have laid down ;. and truth 
and argument are not invidious. But I say that the theory 
of choice — that it is what it is by a natural, constitutional 
necessity, and that a man cannot help choosing what he does 
choose, and can by no possibility choose otherwise — is the 
doctrine of fatalism in all its forms. That there are laws of 
choice, so uniform that in the same circumstances the action 
of mind can be anticipated with great certainty, is not denied. 
That choice is in accordance with the state of body and mind, 
and character, and external circumstances, may be admitted, or 
that it is as the greatest apparent good is, may be admitted ; but 
that is it so necessarily, to the exclusion of all ability of any 
kind to be other than it is, cannot be admitted, without aban- 
doning the field of God's government of accountable agents, 
and going to the very centre of the region of fatalism. The 
certainty of choice in given circumstances does not decide the 
manner of the certainty, as one of natural necessity, without 
power to the contrary. That a man always, in the same cir- 
cumstances, chooses alike, is no evidence that he had no 
ability of any kind to choose otherwise, and chooses by a fatal 
necessity. Uniformity of choice, in the same circumstances, 
is just as consistent with free agency and natural ability, as 
with necessity and fatalism. But that choice, without the 
power of contrary choice, is fatalism in all its diversified 
forms, is obvious to inspection, and a matter of historical 
record. The fatality of the Stoics was an eternal series of 
cause and effect, controlling by inexorable necessity all 
events, from which the will of gods and men was not 
exempt.^ 

*The free agency advocated by them was, as Bitter has plainly shown, 
merely exemption in choice from the necessitating influence of external 
objects, and not from an internal necessity of choice created by our 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



227 



The fatalism of Epicurus was the atomic theory, the fortu- 
itous concourse of atoms, — intelligence in results without an 
intelligent being, design without a designer, and choice, the 
product of the chance movements of material atoms. 

The Gnostic fatality made sin an eternal property of mat- 
ter, and the contamination of mind the result of bodily inocu- 
lation and contact, and by an unavoidable necessity preclud- 
ing freedom of will as utterly as the communication of disease 
by virus. 

The Manicheans held with the Gnostics to the corruption 
of matter, and also to sin in the essence or substance of the 
soul ; both making sin a matter of necessity, independent of 
choice, and controlling volition, as natural causes produce 
their effects. 

The fatalism of Spinoza was material and pantheistic, 
making God identical with the world and the only agent, and 
himself subject to a self-existent, eternal necessity of action, 
and the author alike of sin and holiness. 

The fatalism of the French revolutionary atheists was Sad- 
clucean : that all existence is material, and all its combina- 
tions and changes the result of. material laws in the form of 
natural cause and effect; that mind is matter, that voli- 
tion „ is the result of material action; and that death, the 
Jecomposition of the body, is an eternal sleep. This is the 
fatalism of Robert Dale Owen and Fanny Wright. 

The fatalism of Hobbs and Hume was made to approximate 
a little more to the confines of rationality and truth, but 
not near enough to leave necessity behind, and bring them 

natural constitution and propensities, which are forced upon us by a 
universal fatality, so that we will according to our propensities, even as a 
round stone necessarily rolls down a mountain-side by reason of its shape 
and weight. 



228 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



under the government of God, as free, accountable creatures. 
If they admitted the existence of mind and spirit distinct from 
matter (of which there is some doubt), they clothed motives, 
as the antecedents of volition, with the coercive power of 
material causes to their effects, and thus destroyed the liberty 
of the will, and introduced a universal coercive necessity of 
choice, just in all cases as it is, without the possibility of one 
more or less, or different from those which actually come to 
pass. 

The necessity of Priestley and Belsham was material, and 
all volition in accordance with the laws and action of material 
causes. That motives produce volition necessarily, on the 
same principle that natural causes produce their effects ; so 
that choice, as. the spontaneous action of mind, enlightened 
and guided and influenced by law and motive, has no exist- 
ence, but is in all cases the passive effect of antecedent natural 
causation, as inconsistent with accountability and desert of 
punishment as the sparks that rise by their less specific grav- 
ity than that of the surrounding atmosphere, or the rain-drops 
that fall by their superior gravity to the sustaining element. 

VIII. The supposition of accountability for choice, co- 
erced by a natural necessity, is contrary to the nature of 
things as God has constituted them. The relation of cause 
and effect pervades the universe. The natural world is full 
of it. It is the basis of all science, and of all intellectual 
operations with respect to mind. Can the intellect be annihi- 
lated, and thinking go on ? No more can the power of choice 
be annihilated, and free agency go on. Is there not a capac- 
ity of choice, with power of contrary choice, in angels ? and 
was there not in Adam before he fell ? But all the powers 
of the mind, perception, association, abstraction, memory, 
taste, and feeling, conscience, and capacity of choice, which 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



229 



were required and did exist when man was created free, are 
still required to constitute free agency ; and can it be that 
when all which capacitated Adam freely to choose is demol- 
ished, that the Lord still requires of his posterity that they, 
without the powers of their ancestor, should exercise the per- 
fect obedience that was demanded of him ? Do the requisi- 
tions of law continue when all the necessary antecedents to 
obedience are destroyed ? Has God required effects without 
a cause I If he has. then he has, in the case of man, vio- 
lated the analogies of the whole universe ; for in the natural 
world there is no effect without a cause, nor is there in the 
intellectual world. How, then, can it be that the same anal- 
ogy does not hold in the moral world, where there exist such 
tremendous responsibilities ? What ! will God send men to 
hell for not doing impossibilities — for not producing a moral 
effect without a cause ? 

IX. The supposition of continued obligation and respons- 
ibility, after all the powers of causation are gone, is contrary 
to the common sense and intuitive perception of all mankind. 
All men can see and do see that there can be no effect without 
a cause. They are so constituted that they cannot help 
seeing and feeling this. That nothing cannot produce some- 
thing, is an intuitive perception, the basis of that illustrious 
demonstration by which we prove the being of a God. For, 
if one thing may exist without a cause, all things may ; and 
we are yet to get hold of the first strand of an argument to 
prove the existence of a God. All men see that to require 
right volition without a competent cause of choice in mind, 
would be to require an effect without a cause. What is the 
foundation of accountability ? It is the possession of some- 
thing to be accounted for. But, if a man does not possess the 
capacity of choice with power to the contrary, what has he 

vol. in. 20 



230 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



got to be accountable for ? He sees and feels that lie is not 
to blame ; and you cannot with more infallible certainty make 
men believe, and fix them in the belief, that they are not 
responsible, than to teach them that they have not the power 
of choosing, only as they do actually choose. It is the way 
to make a man a fatalist. But you cannot do it. God has 
put that in the breast of man which cannot be reasoned away. 
Every man knows and feels that he has power and is respons- 
ible. Men never associate blame with the qualities of will 
or action, on the supposition of a natural impossibility that 
they should be otherwise, but always on the supposition 
that they were able to have chosen or acted otherwise. What 
would be the education of a family, on this principle ? There 
is not a child five years old but understands this. He breaks 
a plate or spoils a piece of furniture, and, when he appre- 
hends punishment, he pleads, with confidence^ that he did not 
mean to do it. His language is, "I couldn't help it," and 
on that plea he rests. The child understands it ; and the 
parent understands it ; and all human laws are built upon it. 
Why is not an idiot punished when he commits a crime '? 
For the lack of that natural ability which alone makes him 
responsible. Why are not lunatics treated as subjects of 
law ? Because their reason has been so injured as to destroy 
free agency, and with it to put an end to their accountability. 
Look at the government of a family. If one child is an idiot, 
the parent does not treat that child as he does the rest. He 
feels and admits that the poor idiot is not responsible for its 
acts; and the same principle holds in the case of monomania, 
where the mind is deranged in one particular respect. I was 
myself acquainted with a case of this sort ; an individual in 
whom all the powers were perfect, save that the power of 
association was wanting, — that faculty by which one thought 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



281 



draws on another, — and she was a perfect curiosity. She 
would commence talking on one subject, and before the sen- 
tence was complete she would commence on another, which had 
not the remotest connection with it, and in an instant pass to a 
third, which was foreign from both ; and thus she would hop, 
skip and jump, over all the world, — there was no concatena- 
tion of thought. Now, suppose this woman had been required 
'to deliver a Fourth-of- July oration, admitting that she pos- 
sessed all the knowledge and talent in other respects neces- 
sary to such a task ; — on her failing to do it, is she to be 
taken to the whipping-post, and lacerated for that which she 
wanted the natural ability to do ? The magistrate who would 
award such a sentence would at once become infamous ; and 
shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 1 Will the glo- 
rious and righteous Jehovah reap where he has not sown, 
and gather where he has not strewed ? Will he require obe- 
dience where all power to obey is gone? Men do not 
require that, when even one faculty is gone ; and will God, 
when all are gone, come and take his creature by the throat 
and say to him, Pay that thou owest % That was the libel 
which the slothful servant brought against his Lord: "I 
knew thee that thou wast a hard master, reaping where thou 
hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strown, 
and I was afraid." Who would not be afraid, under such a 
ruler ? Who could tell what would come next 1 God re- 
quires according to that which a man hath, and not according 
to that which he hath not. Were it otherwise, who could 
tell what wantonness and what oppression might not proceeed 
from heaven's high throne? 

X. It is a matter of universal consciousness, that men are 
free to choose right or wrong, life or death. 

Of nothing are men more thoroughly informed, or more 



232 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



competent to judge unerringly, than in respect to their mode 
of action, whether it is coerced or free. 

Testimony may mislead, and the senses by disease may 
deceive ; but consciousness is the end of controversy ; its 
evidence cannot be increased, and, if it be distrusted, there is 
no alternative but universal scepticism. Our consciousness 
of the mode of mental action in choice, as uncoerced and free, 
equals our consciousness of existence itself ; and the man who 
doubts either gives indications of needing medical treatment, 
instead of argument. When a man does wrong, and then 
reflects upon the act, he feels that he might have abstained ; 
and so when he looks forward to a future action. When, for 
example, he deliberates whether he shall commit a theft, he 
listens to the pleading of cowardice or conscience on the one 
side, and of covetousness and laziness on the other. All these 
things come up and are looked at, and, after considering them, 
he at length screws up his mind to the point, and does the 
deed ; and when he has done it, does he not know, does he 
not feel, that he could have chosen the other way ? If not, 
why did he balance when he was considering ? Did he not 
know that he had power to act and power to leave it undone ? 
And when it is past recall, is he not conscious that he need 
not have done it 1 And does he not say, in his remorse, 1 6 I 
am sorry that I did it r ' % I say, therefore, it is a matter of 
common consciousness to all mankind, that they act unco- 
erced, and with the power of acting otherwise. Give a child 
an apple and an orange ; after he has eaten the orange, he 
will wish he had it back again, and he will say, " I wish I had 
eaten the apple and kept the orange." But why, if he did not 
feel that at the time he had the power to keep the orange 
and eat the apple? Yes, men have the power; and the 
consciousness that they have it will go with them through 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



233 



eternity. What says God. when he warns the sinner of the 
consequences of his evil choice ? " Lest thou mourn at the 
last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say. 
How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof, 
and have not obeyed the yoice of my teacher, nor inclined 
mine ear to them that instruct nie. v Incurable regret will 
arise from the perfect consciousness that when he did evil he 
might have done right. This is the worm that never dies, 
•the fire that will never be quenched. And because this 
consciousness is in men. you never can reason them out of a 
sense of accountability. Many have tried it. but none have 
foi any length of time succeeded ; and the reason is plain. — • 
there is nothing which the mind is more conscious of than the 
fact of its own voluntary action, with the power of acting 
right or wrong: the mind sees and knows and regrets 
when it has done wrong. Take away this consciousness, and 
there is no remorse. You cannot produce remorse as long as 
a man feels that his act was not his own. — that it was not 
voluntary, but the effect of compulsion. He may dread the 
consequences, but you never can make him feel remorse for 
the act on its own account. This is the reason why men who 
have reasoned away the existence of God. and argued that to 
require right volition without a competent cause in mind is 
to require an effect without a cause, to prove that the soul is 
nothing but matter, know, as soon as they reflect, that all 
their reasoning is false. There is a lamp within, which they 
cannot extinguish ; and. after all their metaphysics, they are 
conscious that they act freely, and that there is a God to 
whom they are accountable : and. hence it is that when they 
cross the ocean, and a storm comes on. and they expect to 
go to the bottom, they begin straightway to pray to God and 
confess their sins. 
vol. in. 20* 



234 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



The natural impossibility of choosing otherwise than 
we do choose is contrary, then, not only to the common 
sense and intuitive perceptions of men, but contrary to their 
internal consciousness. There is a deep and universal con- 
sciousness in all men as to the freedom of choice ; and, in 
denying this, you reverse God'& constitution of man. You 
assume that God gave a deceptive constitution to mind, or a 
decepti consciousness. Now, I think that God is as honest 
in the moral world as he is in the natural world. I believe, 
that in our consciousness he tells the truth ; and that the 
natural constitution and universal feelings and perceptions 
of men are the voice of God speaking the truth ; and if the 
truth is not here, where may we expect to find it 1 

It has been insisted by some that in looking for the 
ground of accountability men never go beyond the fact 
itself of voluntariness ; if the deed, whether good or evil, be 
voluntary, that satisfies. It does ; but it is because all men 
include, unfailingly, both in their theory and consciousness, 
the supposition of powers of agency unhindered and unco- 
erced by any fatal necessity. But, convince them that 
choice is an effect over which mind has no more control than 
over the drops of rain, and the common sense of the world 
would revolt against the accountability of choice merely 
because it was choice. There is, therefore, a universal prac- 
tical profession of man's free agency, as including the capacity 
of choice, uncoerced and free. All men claim a desert of 
reward for well-doing, and complain of ingratitude and injus- 
tice when it is denied. They admit and insist that those who 
injure them in person, good name, or substance, deserve 
punishment. They admit that laws and rewards and pun- 
ishments are necessary to the government of men, and just 
when administered according to their deeds. Even atheists 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



235 



and fatalists can rail against superstition and priestcraft, and 
bigotry and persecution, as deserving execration and punish- 
ment ; an evidence that when consciousness and common sense 
prevail, their sceptical theory is a dead letter. A nation of 
atheists were constrained, in words and deeds, to falsify their 
philosophy ; and in the family and in the government to talk 
and act as if men were free agents, and accountable for their 
deeds. 

XI. Beside all the preceding, we add that all attempts 
to govern man, and form his character and elevate his condi- 
tion, upon any other supposition than his spontaneous agency, 
pervert his nature, and debase society. Just in proportion as 
mental culture is superseded by force, he sinks in the scale 
of being, till he becomes a stupid or a ferocious animal. Treat 
men as if they were dogs, and soon they will act like dogs. 
But, the moment you treat them as free moral agents, and 
responsible for their actions, that moment you begin to ele- 
vate them. Treat a child with affection, repose confidence in 
him, and address his reason, — he feels that he is raised, and 
he acts accordingly; and just as you depart from this course 
you become unable to manage your child. He gets out of 
your hands, — he gets above you ; for, as respects his relation 
to you, he is indomitable. The will of man is stronger than 
anything in the universe, except the Almighty God ; and, if 
you disregard this truth, you ruin your child. 

XII. God requires of his subjects only conformity to 
himself, to his own moral excellence, but he admits of no 
obligation on himself to work impossibilities ; and does he 
impose obligations on his subjects which he himself refuses 
to assume ? He does not regard it as an excellence in him- 
self to work impossibilities ; does he command it as a virtue 
in his subjects ? 



236 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



He has no desire to work impossibilities himself; why- 
should he desire it in his creatures 1 He has never tried, 
and never will try, to work an impossibility : and why should 
he command his creatures to do what he himself neither 
desires nor tries to accomplish ? He cannot work impossi- 
bilities : and how can it be thought that he will require of 
his creatures that which he himself cannot do ? 

The original powers of free agency and accountability 
bestowed on man, in innocency, decide that power to choose, 
with a power of choice to the contrary, is an essential constit- 
uent of accountability, in all his posterity. There can be no 
doubt that God is able to make a free agent, — to bring a mind 
into being which is capable of doing right or wrong, under a 
perfect law. There are two orders of intellectual beings with 
which we are acquainted, angels and men. With respect to 
Adam in innocency, we know, certainly, that God laid the 
foundation of his accountability in a free agency, which 
included both the ability of standing and the ability of falling. 
Before either Adam or the angels acted at all, they had a 
capacity to respond to the divine requirements ; and it was 
indispensable to their moral action that they should. But, if 
this was necessary to begin moral accountability, why is it 
not equally necessary to continue it 1 Did God give to man 
more than he needed 1 Surely not. God has told us what 
he did. There is no metaphysics about it. He conferred 
upon him no one item of power which he afterwards took 
away. The Confession says so ; and the perceptions of all 
mankind, and the analogy of God's government, both in the 
natural world and moral world, and the intuitive knowledge 
which we all possess of the connection of cause and effect, and 
of the foundation of moral obligation, all go to establish and 
confirm the truth. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 287 



My argument is, that free agency and obligation were com- 
menced in the possession of natural ability commensurate 
with all that God required : and that what was necessary to 
begin them is equally necessary to Continue them, and always 
will be equally necessary. I know that it is said that the devil 
has fallen into a state of natural inability. But to this I can't 
agree. I have no doubt the devil would be glad to think so. 
It would relieve his deep and insupportable anguish, if he 
could believe that he had never sinned but once, and that ever 
since that he has been a poor, helpless creature. No ! he has 
sinned since his fall, and will sin again. He does possess free 
agency, and he can't run away from it. It is a necessary 
attribute of his being, and so it is of ours. God will live, 
and his law will live, and the curses of his law will live ; and 
that is the reason why the punishment of the next world is 
eternal. Stripes continue to follow upon the footsteps of 
transgression to all eternity. 

I say that there was nothing in the fall to destroy rnairs 
free agency. The fall in Adam was occasioned by a single 
actual sin : but does actual sin destroy free agency '? If so, 
drunkards and all liars will be glad to know it. The more 
liquor they drink, and the more lies they tell, the less will be 
their accountability. Xo, the fall did not destroy free agency 
or accountability. It did create a powerful bias, so that there 
was an inevitable certainty that man would go wrong. But 
it did not destroy his capacity of going right. Look at the 
consequence that would follow. If sin destroys free agency, 
then the man who tells the truth is under obligation to speak 
truth, but he who tells lies is not under obligation. Sinning 
does not destroy the power of obedience any more in men than 
it did in Adam. It destroyed it in neither ; and, therefore, 
although man fell, the law marched on unimpaired, un- 



238 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



change^ and therefore it was that Christ came to save not 
machines, but perverted free agents. 

All such constitutional powers as were requisite or can 
be conceived necessary for man's accountability do still 
remain. The natural power of man is a matter of inspection 
and consciousness. We see it in others ; we feel it in our- 
selves. We have still perception, reason, conscience, associ- 
ation, abstraction, memory. All these were possessed by 
man when he was constituted a free agent, and they all do 
now in fact exist. So far as our natural and constitutional 
powers are concerned, there is no difference betwixt us and 
Adam. The difference lies in this, that Adam, while in a 
state of innocency, put forth these powers in a right direction, 
while we all exert them perversely, although by the sponta- 
neous energy of the mind. Therefore, the fact that man is a 
free agent is as much a matter of notoriety, and as generally 
known and understood, as the qualities of the inferior animals ; 
as that a lion is a lion, or a lamb is a lamb. It is just as 
plain that we have the faculties necessary to free action as 
that we have five senses. These were all that were ever put 
into Adam. We have just as many as he had, neither more 
nor less ; and, if you take away any one of them, you do to that 
extent take away the responsibility of the individual ; at least, 
such is the doctrine in all human courts of justice, though 
some would persuade us it is otherwise in the righteous court 
of Heaven. 

I have now finished the argument in confirmation of the 
doctrine of the Confession of Faith, so far as the confirmation 
is derived from the nature of things. 

The interpretation given by Dr. Wilson goes up stream. 
It is against the whole constitution of the universe. It is 
contrary to the common sense and intuitive perceptions of 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



239 



man. There is a deep and a universal consciousness in all 
men as to the freedom of choice, and in denying this you 
reverse God's constitution of man. You assume that God 
gave a deceptive constitution to mind, or a deceptive con- 
sciousness. Now, I think that God is as honest in his moral 
world as he is in the natural world. I believe that in our 
consciousness he tells the truth ; and that the natural constitu- 
tion, universal feelings and perceptions of men, are the voice 
of God speaking the truth; and, if the truth is not here, 
where may we expect to find it ? 

My next argument is to show that, in view of such reason- 
ing, the whole Church of God has set her seal to this doc- 
trine ; and that what has been termed a slander upon her fair 
fame, so far from being a slander, will turn out to be a 
glorious truth ; and that the demonstration of it will have 
wiped off from her fame a foul stigma, which was cast upon 
it by a misinterpretation of her standards. 

I affirm, then, in support of my exposition of the Confes- 
sion, that the received doctrine of the Church, from the primi- 
tive age down to this day, is, that man is a free agent, in 
possession of such natural powers as are adequate to a com- 
pliance with every requirement of God. 

But Dr. Wilson has said, What are the opinions of these 
writers to us ? What have we to do with them ? I answer 
that the opinions of great and good men in the Church, 
showing how the Church from generation to generation has 
understood the Bible, is a light in which both he and I have 
reason to rejoice. And, if I shall bring the united testimony 
of the talent, learning and piety, of the Church, in support of 
my exposition, I am willing to run the risk of going to 
Synod. I shall, therefore, submit to the Presbytery a series 
of quotations from the fathers, as I find them collected by 



240 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Dr. Scott, in his remarks upon Tomline. I take his quota- 
tions as correct, not having the originals in my possession, by 
which to verify them. I presume Dr. Wilson will admit 
their authenticity. 

It is, however, to be remembered, and noted carefully in 
reading this testimony of the fathers, that by "free will" 
they mean a will free as opposed to the coercion of fate ; the 
supposed necessity of a series of natural causes, by which the 
wills of God and man were controlled. The question whether 
the will is free in a moral sense, as prone to evil since the 
fall, or impartial and unbiased, had not then come up in the 
Church. The moral bias to evil was admitted, — taken for 
granted, — and not publicly controverted till the time of Pela- 
gius. Their doctrine of free will, therefore, is not the 
Pelagian or Arminian doctrine, but„ the anti-fatalism doctrine 
of mind free as uncoerced in choice, and with the power 
always of contrary choice, — that is, the equal power of choos- 
ing good or evil, life or death, — and in this view I begin with 
Justin Martyr, A. D. 140. 

But lest any one should imagine that I am asserting that things 
happen by a necessity of fate, because I have said that things are fore- 
known, I proceed to refute that opinion also. That punishments and 
chastisements and good rewards are given according to the worth of the 
action of every one, having learnt it from the prophets, we declare to be 
true ; since if it were not so, but ail things to happen according to fate, 
nothing would be in our power ; for, if it were decreed by fate that one 
should be good and another bad, no praise would be due to the former, or 
blame to the latter. And again, if mankind had not the power by free 
will to avoid what is disgraceful, and to choose what is good, they would 
not be responsible for their actions. — p. 13. 

Because God from the beginning endowed angels and men with free 
will, they justly receive punishment of their sins in everlasting fire. For 
it is the nature of every one who is born to be capable of virtue and vice ; 
for nothing would deserve praise, if it has not the power of turning itself 
away. — p. 25. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



241 



This language of Justin is as plain as it can be. That to 
free agency and accountability the natural ability of choice^ 
with power to the contrary ) is indispensable. 

Tatian, A. D. 172. — Free will destroyed us. Being free, we became 
slaves; we were sold, because of sin. No evil proceeds from God. We 
have produced wickedness ; but those who have produced it have it in 
their power again to remove it. — p. 31 [that is, the natural power of 
choosing life or death]. 

Irenjsus, A. D. 178. — But man being endowed with reason, and in this 
respect like to God, — being made free in his will, and having power over 
himself, — is the cause that sometimes he becomes wheat and sometimes 
chaff. Wherefore he will also be justly condemned ; because, being made 
rational, he lost true reason : and living irrationally, he opposed the jus- 
tice of God, delivering himself up to every earthly spirit, and serving all 
lusts. — p. 35. 

But if some men were bad by nature (that is, by a natural necessity) 
and others good, neither the good would deserve praise, for they were cre- 
ated so, nor would the bad deserve blame, being born so. But, since all 
men are of the same nature, and able to lay hold of and do that which is good, 
and able to reject it again and not do it, some justly receive praise, e-ven 
from men, who act according to good laws, and some much more from 
God ; and obtain deserved testimony of generally choosing and persevering 
in that which is good ; but others are blamed, and receive the deserved 
reproach of rejecting that which is just and good. And therefore the 
prophets enjoined men to do justice and perform good works. — p. 42. 

Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 194. — Neither praise nor , dispraise, nor 
honors nor punishments, would be just, if the soul had not the power of 
desiring and rejecting, if vice were involuntary. — p. 54. 

As, therefore, he is to be commended who uses his power in leading a 
virtuous life ; so much more is he to be venerated and adored who has 
given us this free and sovereign power, and has permitted us to live, not 
having allowed what we choose or what we avoid to be subject to a slavish 
necessity, — p. 54. 

Tertullian, A. D. 200. — I find that man was formed by God with free 
will and with power over himself, observing in him no image or likeness to 
God more than in this respect ; for he was not formed after God, who is 
uniform in face, bodily lines, &c, which are so various in mankind, but in 
that substance which he derived from God himself ; that is, the soul, 
VOL. III. 21 



242 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



answering to the form of God ; and he was stamped with the freedom of 
his will. 

The law itself, which was then imposed by God, confirmed this condition 
of man. For a law would not have been imposed on a person who had not 
in his power the obedience due to the law; nor, again, would transgres- 
sion have been threatened with death, if the contempt also of the law were 
not placed to the account of man's free will. 

He who should be found to be good or bad by necessity, and not volun- 
tarily, could not with justice receive the retribution either of good or evil. 
— p. 64. 

This demands no comment. 

Origen, A. D. 220. — Whence, consequently, we may understand, that 
we are not subject to necessity so as to be compelled by all means to do 
either bad or good things, although it be against our will. For if we be 
masters of one will, some powers, perhaps, may urge us to sin, and others 
assist us to safety ; yet we are not compelled by necessity to act either 
rightly or wrongly. 

According to us, there is nothing in any rational creature which is not 
capable of good as well as evil. There is no nature that does not admit of 
good and evil, except that of God, which is the foundation of all good. — 
p. 66. 

We have frequently shown, in all our disputations, that the nature of 
rational souls is such as to be capable of good and evil. Every one has the 
power of choosing good and choosing evil. — p. 67. 

A thing does not happen because it was foreknown ; but it was fore- 
known because it would happen. This distinction is necessary. For if 
any one so interprets what was to happen as to make what was foreknown 
necessary, we do not agree with him ; for we do not say that it was neces- 
sary for Judas to be a traitor, although it was foreknown that Judas would 
be a traitor. For in the prophecies concerning Judas there are complaints 
and accusations against him, publicly proclaiming the circumstance of his 
blame ; but he would be free from blame, if he had been a traitor from 
necessity, and if it had been impossible for him to be like the other apos- 
tles. —pp. 80, 81. 

Cyprian, A. D. 248. — Yet did he not reprove those who left him or 
threaten them severely, but rather, turning to the apostles, said, " Will ye 
also go away ? " preserving the law, by which man, being left to his own 



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243 



liberty, and endowed with free will, seeks for himself death or salvation. 
— p. 84. 

Lactantius, A. D. 306. — That man has a free will [that is, able to 
choose either way] to believe or not to believe, see in Deuteronomy, "I 
have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore choose 
life, that both thou and thy seed may live." — p. 88. 

Eusebius, A. D. 315. The fault is in him who chooses, and not in God. 
For God has not made nature or the substance of the soul bad ; for he who 
is good can make nothing but what is good. Everything is good which is 
according to nature (that is, as God made it). Every rational soul has 
naturally a good free will formed for the choice of what is good. But 
when a man acts wrongly, nature is not to be blamed ; for what is wrong 
takes place not according to nature, but contrary to nature, it being the 
work of choice, and not of nature. For when a person who had the power 
of choosing what was good did not choose it, but voluntarily turned away 
from what is best, pursuing what was worst, what room for escape could 
be left him, who is become the cause of his own internal disease, having 
neglected the innate law, as it were, his saviour and physician ? — p. 91. 

In all these quotations, I repeat, the words of these fathers 
must be expounded with regard to the object at which their 
writings were directed. Let it not be forgotten that the 
first heresy which vexed the Church after the days of the 
apostles was the pagan notion of fate, or such a necessary 
concatenation of cause and effect as was above the will 
both of gods and men, — the very gods themselves had no 
power to resist it. The same notion was involved in the 
heresy of the Gnostics, who held that all sin lay in matter, 
and that man was a sinner from necessity ; and of the Mani- 
cheans, who held that all sin was in the created substance of 
the mind. Now, in resisting these heretics, these fathers 
maintained with zeal the doctrine of free will, — meaning 
thereby, not an unbiased will, but a will free from the neces- 
sity of fate ; for the philosophers, and the Gnostics, and the 
Manicheans, all held the doctrine of man's natural inability. 



244 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



The philosophers derived it from fate ; the Gnostics, from the 
corruption of matter ; the Manicheans, from the constitution 
and nature of the soul. This was the first great attack upon 
the truth on which these venerable men were called to fix 
their sanctified vision, and it was against these several ver- 
sions of error that they bore their testimony in favor of free 
will. 

Cyril of Jerusalem, A. D. 348. — The soul has free will: the devil, 
indeed, may suggest, but he has not also the power to compel contrary to 
the will. He suggests the thought of fornication, — if you be willing, you 
accept it; if unwilling, you reject it ; for if you committed fornication by 
necessity, why did God prepare a hell ? If you acted justly by nature 
[that is, necessity], and not according to your own free choice, why did 
God prepare unutterable rewards ? — p. 103. 

Hilary, A. D. 304. — The excuse of a certain natural necessity in crimes 
is not to be admitted. For the serpent might have been innocent, who 
himself stops his ears that they may be deaf. — p. 110. 

There is not any necessity of sin in the nature of men, but the practice 
of sin arises from the desires of the will, and the pleasures of vice. 

Epiphanius, A. D. 360. — How does he seem to retain the freedom of 
his will in this world ? For to believe, or not to believe, is in our own 
power. But where it is in our power to believe or not to believe, it is in 
our power to act rightly or to sin, to do good or to do evil. 

Basil, A. D. 370. — They attribute to the heavenly bodies the causes of 
those things that depend on every one's choice, — I mean habits of virtue 
and of vice. 

If the origin of virtuous or vicious actions be not in ourselves, but there 
is an innate necessity, there is no need of legislators to prescribe what we 
are to do, and what we are to avoid ; there is no need of judges to honor 
virtue or punish wickedness. For it is not the injustice of the thief or 
murderer, who could not restrain his hand even if he would, because of the 
insuperable necessity that urges him to the actions. — p. 116. 

Gregory of Nazianzen, A. D. 370. — The good derived from nature has 
no claim to acceptance ; but that which proceeds fvom free will is deserv- 
ing of praise. What merit has fire in burning ? for the burning comes by 
nature [that is, necessity]. What merit has water in descending ? for this 
it has from the Creator. What merit has snow in being cold ? or the sun 
in shining ? for it shines whether it will or not. — p. 124. - 



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245 



Gregory of Nybsa. — Let any consider how great the facility to what 
is bad — gliding into sin spontaneously, without any effort. For that 
any one should become wicked, depends solely upon choice ; and the will 
is often sufficient for the completion of wickedness. — p. 127. 

Ambrose, A. P. 374. — We are not constrained to obedience by a seryile 
necessity, but by free will, whether we lean to virtue or to vice. 

Xo one is under obligation to commit a fault, unless he inclines to it from 
his own will. — p. 131. 

Jerome, A. D. 392. — Xo seed is of itself bad, for God made all things 
good ; but bad seed has arisen from those who by their own will are bad, 
which happens from will and not from nature [that is, necessity]. — 
p. 141. 

That we profess free will, and can turn it either to a good or bad pur- 
pose, according to our determination, is owing to His grace, who made us 
after His image and likeness 

We have now come to Augustine. And now it will be 
necessary to avail myself of the remarks I made on the laws 
of exposition. I said that it was necessary, in order to a 
right exposition of any ancient instrument in the Church, to 
take into view the controversies which prevailed at the time 
of its composition. We must now apply this especially to 
Augustine. Down to his time, the free will and natural 
ability of man were held by the whole Church, against the 
heretical notions of a blind fate, of material depravity, and of 
depravity created in the substratum of the soul. The great 
effort, hitherto, had been to maintain the liberty or uncoerced 
action of the mind in choice, with the power of contrary 
choice. But now Pelagius arose, and denied the doctrine of 
the fall ; and from this time it became necessary, not so much 
to prove natural ability, which Pelagius admitted, as to 
prove a moral inability, which he denied. 

The Church had now to enter upon a new controversy, and 
to fix her eye upon, the question, What were the consequences 
of the fall ? The question of free agency was no longer to be 

VOL. III. 21* 



246 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



argued, for that was not now controverted. Both Augustine 
and Pelagius admitted it. The question which now exists 
between Dr. Wilson and myself was not at issue between them. 
The question, indeed, turned on the same words, namely, 
free will, — but it did not mean the same thing. The ques- 
tion between them was, Is the will unbiased ? — is it in equi- 
librium 1 It was not, whether it was free from the necessity 
of fate, or the coercion of matter, or of created depravity, — 
but the question was, Has the fall given it a bias ? has it 
struck it out of equilibrium, and struck the balance wrong? 
Pelagius said, No. Augustine said, Yes ; and while, in oppo- 
sition to Pelagius, he denied free will [meaning unbiased will], 
he was as strong in favor of free will in the other sense as 
any of the fathers before him ; as strong as I am ; — so that, 
if I am a Pelagian, Augustine was^a Pelagian, although his 
whole strength was exerted against Pelagius. If what I 
teach is Pelagianism, then Augustine, and Calvin, and Lu- 
ther, and all the best writers of the Church in this age, have 
been Pelagians, except the few who deny natural ability. 

Augustine, A, D. 398. — Free will is given to the soul, which, they who 
endeavor to weaken by trifling reasoning are blind to such a degree that 
they do not even understand that they say those vain and sacrilegious 
things with their own will. — p. 176. 

Which free will, if God had not given, there could be no just sentence of 
punishment, nor reward for right conduct, nor a divine precept to repent 
of sins, nor pardon of sins, which God has given us through our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; because he who does not sin with his will does not sin at all. 
Which sins, as I have said, unless we had free will, would not be sins. 
Wherefore, if it be evident that there is no sin where there is not free 
will, I desire to know what harm the soul has done, that it should be pun- 
ished by God, or repent of sin, or deserve pardon, since it has been guilty 
of no sin. — p. 214. 

That there is free will, and that from thence every one sins if he wills, 
and that he does not sin if he does not will, I prove not only in the divine 



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247 



Scriptures, which you do not understand, but in the words of your own 
Manes himself : hear, then, concerning free will, first, the Lord himself 
when he speaks of two trees, which you yourself have mentioned : hear him 
saying, "Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the 
tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt." When, therefore, he says, " do this 
or do that," he shows power, not nature. For no one, except God, can 
make a tree, but every one has it in his will, either to choose those 

THINGS THAT ARE GOOD AND BE A GOOD TREE, OR TO CHOOSE THOSE THINGS 
THAT ARE BAD AND BE A BAD TREE. p. 215. 

The next authority I shall adduce is that of Luther, who 
holds that, in the exercise of his own faculties, the mind 
chooses, by its very constitution, just as much as it thinks by 
the exertion of its intellect. 

There is (he says) no restraint either on the divine or human will. In 
both cases the will does what it does, whether good or bad, simply, and as 
at perfect liberty, in the exercise of its own faculty, — so long as the opera- 
tive grace of God is absent from us, everything we do has in it a mixture 
of evil ; and, therefore, of necessity, our works avail not to salvation. 
Here I do not mean a necessity of compulsion, but a necessity as to the 
certainty of the event. A man who has not the Spirit of God does evil 
willingly and spontaneously. He is not violently impelled, against his 
will, as a thief is to the gallows. — Milnor, vol. v. cent. 16, chap. 12, 
sec. 2. 

Thus we see that it was Luther's sentiment, that depravity 
does not destroy the innate liberty of the will, or its natural 
power, although it corrupts and perverts its exercise. 

I now proceed to quote from Calvin 5 who holds that neces- 
sity is voluntary, — that is, that the will is under no such 
necessity as destroys its own power of choice ; that there was 
no other yoke upon man but voluntary servitude ; and I shall 
snow that the doctrine for which I contend is not new divin- 
ity, but old Calvinism. 

Calvin says : — " That God is voluntary in his goodness, 
Satan in his wickedness, and man in his sin." " We must, 



248 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



therefore, observe," he says, "that man, having been cor- 
rupted by the fall, sins voluntarily, not with reluctance or 
constraint ; with the strongest propensity of disposition, 
not with violent coercion ; with the bias of his own pas- 
sions, and not with external compulsion." He quotes 
Bernard, as agreeing with Augustine, in saying, 1 1 Among 
all the animals, man alone is free ; and yet, by the interven- 
tion of sin, he suffers a species of violence, but from the will, 
not from nature ; so that he is not thereby deprived of his 
innate liberty" Both Augustine and the Reformers speak, 
indeed, of the bondage of the will, and of the necessity of 
sinning, and of the impossibility that a natural man should 
turn and save himself without grace ; but they explain them- 
selves to mean that certainty of continuance in sin which 
arises from a perverted free agency, ^nd not from any natural 
impossibility. For " this necessity," they say expressly, "is 
voluntary." "We are oppressed with a yoke, but no other 
than that of voluntary servitude ; therefore, our servitude 
renders us miserable, and our will renders us inexcusable." 
— See Calvin 's Instil. Book II. ch. in. sec. 5. 

I always exclude coercion, for we sin voluntarily, or it would not be sin 
unless it were voluntary. — Commentary on Rom. 7. 

My next quotation is from Turretin, the apostle of ortho- 
doxy, whose works are the text-book in the Princeton Semi- 
nary : 

The question is not concerning the power or natural faculty of will, " a 
qua est ipsum velle vel nolle," which may be called, first power and the 
material principle of moral action ; for this always remains in man, and by 
it he is distinguished from the brutes. 

" Velle vel nolle" means, in the technics of the day, the 
power to choose or not to choose in every case ; and this he 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



249 



says always remains in roan in every condition, as by it he is 
distinguished from the brutes. 

The natural power of willing, in whatever condition we may be, is never 
taken away from us, insomuch as by it we are distinguished from the 
brutes. — p. 999. 

Howe is my next witness. He was contemporary with the 
Assembly of Divines at Westminster. He quotes the follow- 
ing with approbation from Twiss : 

The inability to do what is pleasing and acceptable to God is not a 
natural, but moral inability ; for no faculty of our nature is taken away 
from us by original sin : as saith Augustine, — It has taken from no man 
the faculty of discerning truth. The power still remains, by which we can 
do whatever we choose. We say that the natural power of doing anything 
according to our will is preserved to all, but no moral power. 

Dr. Wteherspoon. — The sinner will, perhaps, say, But why should the 
sentence be so severe ? The law may be right in itself, but it is hard, or 
even impossible, for me. I have no strength. I cannot love the Lord with 
all my heart. I am altogether insufficient for that which is good. 0, that 
you would but consider what sort of inability you were under to keep the 
commandments of God. Is it natural, or is it moral ? Is it really want 
of ability, or is it only want of will? Is it anything more than the 
depravity and corruption of your hearts, which is itself criminal, and the 
source of all actual transgressions ? Have you not natural faculties and 
understanding, will and affections, a wonderful frame of body and a 
variety of members ? What is it that hinders them all from being conse- 
crated to God ? Are they not as proper in every respect for his service as 
for a baser purpose ? When you are commanded to love God with all your 
heart, this surely is not commanding more than you can pay. For, if you 
give it not to him, you will give it to something else that is far from being 
so deserving of it. The law, then, is not impossible, in the strict and 
proper sense, even to you. 

He (the convinced sinner) will see that there is nothing to hinder his 
compliance icith every part of his duty, but an inward aversion to God, 
which is the very essence of sin. 

Without perplexing ourselves with the meaning of the imputation of 



250 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Adam's first sin, this we may be sensible of, that the guilt of all inherent 
corruption must be personal, because it is voluntary and consented to. 
Of both these things a discovery of the glory of God will powerfully convince 
the sinner. 

Dr. Watts. — Man has lost not his natural power to obey the law ; he 
is bound, then, as far as natural powers will reach. I own his faculties 
are greatly corrupted by vicious inclinations, or sinful propensities, which 
has been happily called by our divines a moral inability to fulfil the law, 
rather than a natural impossibility of it. 

Dr. Samuel Spring, of Newburyport. — What is moral action ? A moral 
action is an exercise of the will or heart of man. A moral action is the 
volition of a moral agent. Nothing is moral which is not voluntary. It is 
as absurd to talk of sin, separate from moral exercise or volition, as it is to 
talk of whiteness separate from anything which is white. 

Dr. Spring, of New York. — Seriously considered, it is impossible to sin 
without acting voluntarily. The divine law requires nothing but voluntary 
obedience, and forbids nothing but voluntary disobedience. As men can- 
not sin without acting, nor act without choosing to act, so they must act 
voluntarily in sinning. — Spring's Essays, p. 120. 

This nature of sin, as actual and voluntary, he carries out 
in its application to infants. He says : 

Every child of Adam is a sinner [an actual sinner] from the moment he 
becomes a child of Adam. He sins not in deed nor word, but in thought. 
The thought of foolishness is sin. * * * Who ever heard or conceived 
of a living immortal soul without natural faculties and moral dispositions ? 
Every infant that has attained maturity enough to have a soul has such 
a soul as this. It is a soul which perceives, reasons, remembers, feels, 
chooses, and has the faculty of judging of its own moral dispositions. — 
Spring on Native Depravity, pp. 10, 14. 

Henry on Ezekiel 18: 31. < — The reason why sinners die is because 
they will die. They will go down the way that leads to death, and not 
come up to the terms on which life is offered. Herein sinners are most 
unreasonable, and act most unaccountably. 

Dr. Wilson, of Philadelphia. — No mere man is able, either of himself, 
or by any grace received in his life, perfectly to keep the commandments 
of God, &c. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 251 

The ability which is here denied is evidently of the moral 
kind, because the aid of the inability is supposed to be grace, 
which adds no new faculties. The passage taken from the 
Confession of Faith, chap, xvi., is a representation of the same 
thing. c< This ability to do good works is not at all of them- 
selves, but wholly from the Spirit of God." Here the ability 
spoken of is that which the saint has, and the sinner has not, 
and is derived from the Spirit of God ; it is, therefore, merely 
the effect of regenerating grace, which changes the heart, 
removes the prejudices, and thus enlightens the understand- 
mg ; the law itself ought to convince such minds of their ina- 
bility to render an acceptable righteousness, and thus lead them 
to Christ. In all these instances, the inability consists not in 
the natural, that is, physical defects, either of mind or body ; 
if it were such, it would excuse ; but it consists in the party's 
aversion to holiness. This is also clear from another pas- 
sage cited in the essay, page 15, from the Confession of 
Faith, — " A natural man, being altogether averse from that 
which is good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own 
strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereto." 
Here the words u dead in sin" express a higher degree of 
that - ; aversion to good" which had been predicted of man 
in his natural and unrenewed state, and suppose the party to 
'aave no more disposition to things spiritual and holy than a 
dead carcass possesses towards objects of sense. The inability 
or want of strength here mentioned is affirmed of the natural 
man : and his inability, or that circumstance in which it con- 
sists, is pointed out expressly by the intercalary member, 
u ^>eing altogether averse from that which is good, and dead 
in sin." Language can scarcely be found more clearly to 
show that the only culpable inability or want of strength 



252 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



in the sinner lies in his aversion to that'ivhich is good. — 
pp. 14, 15. 

Dr. Dickinson, a cotemporary of Dr. Witherspoon in 
New Jersey, and a cotemporary also with Dr. Greene in 
the early part of his life, has this sentiment on the point of 
discussion: " Let inability be properly denominated, and 
called obstinacy." This was a divine of admitted and unim- 
peachable orthodoxy, a man of eminent abilities, a friend to 
revivals of religion, and one of the pillars of the Presbyterian 
Church. 

President Davis, the pioneer and planter of Presbyterian- 
ism in Virginia, afterwards President of Princeton College, 
one of the most pungent, popular, and successful of preachers, 
inquires, " What is inability but unwillingness?' 7 

Edwards the younger, President of Union College, was a 
Presbyterian, and what does he say? To the question, 
whether the moral inability which his father taught can be 
removed by the sinner, his answer was: "Yes; and the 
moment you deny this, you change the whole character of 
the inability, together with the whole character of the man ; 
for then his inability ceases to be obstinacy, and becomes 
physical incapacity." 

Witsius. — He [Adam] sinned with judgment and will, to which facul- 
ties liberty, as opposed to compulsion, is so peculiar, nay, essential, that 
there can be neither judgment nor will unless they be free. — Vol. i. p. 
198. 

The Andover Declaration, subscribed by the professors. — God's 
decrees perfectly consist with human liberty, God's universal agency with 
the agency of man, and man's dependence with his accountability. Man 
has understanding and corporeal strength to do all that God requires of 
him ; so that nothing but the sinner's aversion to holiness prevents his 
salvation. — Laws, p. 9. 

Dr Tyler (see National Preacher, vol. n. pp. 161, 163). — Several 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



253 



ioctrines of the Gospel have been regarded by some as presenting 
insuperable obstacles to their salvation. 

The doctrine of Human Depravity has been thus regarded. " If I am 
entirely depra ued," the sinner sometimes says, " then I am utterly helpless. 
It is beyond my power to do anything which God requires ; and, conse- 
quently, it is totally impossible that I should comply with the terms of 
salvation revealed in the Gospel." This representation proceeds upon an 
entire misapprehension as to the nature of depravity. Depravity does not 
destroy moral agency. It does not so impair the natural faculties of man 
as to disable-him from doing his duty, if he will. It has its seat in the 
heart, and consists in a perverse and sinful inclination. "When we say 
that man is entirely depraved, we do not mean that he is a poor, unfortu- 
nate being, who is commanded to do impossibilities ; but we mean that he 
is a guilty rebel, who voluntarily refuses to yield allegiance to the God 
who made him. We mean that he loves sin, and is unwilling to abandon 
it ; that he hates his duty, and is unwilling to perform it ; that he dislikes 
the terms of salvation, and is unwilling to comply with them. We do not 
mean that all the powers and faculties of his soul are so impaired that he 
could not do his duty if he would ; but we mean that he will not do his 
duty when he can, — that, in the full possession of all the powers of moral 
agency, and with perfect ability to comply with the terms of salvation, if 
he will, he chooses the road that leads to death, and will not come to Christ 
that he might .have life. This supposes no difficulty in the way of his 
salvation, except What lies in a perverse and obstinate will. 

Again : the doctrine of Regeneration is supposed to imply an insu- 
perable obstacle in the way of the sinner's salvation. We often hear the 
sinner reasoning thus : "If I must be born again, in order to enter into 
the kingdom of God, — and if this change is exclusively the work of the Eoly 
Spirit, a work which he is under no obligations to perform, and which my 
own efforts will never accomplish, — then there is a difficulty in the way of 
my salvation which is beyond my power to remove. It does not depend 
on my will, but on the will of God, whether I shall be saved." But here 
again the sinner labors under an entire misapprehension as to the nature 
of the change in question, and as to the reason why this change is neces- 
sary. What is it to be born again ? Simply to be made willing to do 
what God requires. It is thus represented in the Scriptures : Thy people 
shall be willing in the day of thy power. Why is it necessary that men 
should be born again? Xot because they are un a h le to do their duty, if 
they will ; but because they are unwilling to do it. It is their depravity 

VOL. III. 2'2 



254 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



which renders this supernatural change necessary. But their depravity is 
not their calamity merely, but their crime. It consists, as we have seen, 
in a perverse inclination, — in a voluntary and obstinate refusal to yield 
obedience to the reasonable commands of Jehovah. What the sinner needs, 
therefore, is to have this pervers.e inclination changed ; that is, to be made 
willing to do what God requires. The necessity of this change, therefore, 
supposes no obstacle in the way of his salvation, except his own unwil- 
lingness to do his duty. 

Dr. Woods (Letters to Dr. Ware, ch. v. p. 183). — According to our 
views, there can be no such necessity in the case as implies force or 
coercion, or anything contrary to perfect voluntariness. 

What, then, is the freedom which belongs to a moral agent ? It is free- 
dom from that physical coercion or force, which either causes actions that 
are not voluntary, or prevents those which the agent chooses to perform. 

I grant that man has a power of choosing between different courses, and 
of yielding to either of two opposite motives. — Remarks on Ware, pp. 
34, 35, 36. 

Men have by nature the constitution^ they have all the faculties, 
essential to moral agency. 

(Third Letter to Dr. Beecher, — Spirit of the Pilgrims, vol. vi. No. 1, pp. 
19 — 22.) — I have just received your sermon on Dependence and Free 
Agency ; and, according to a suggestion in your letter to me, I shall pro- 
ceed to remark on some of the topics which it introduces. 

Between your views and mine, on the subject of man's ability and 
inability, there is not, so far as I can judge, any real disagreement. You 
do indeed sometimes use language different from that which I am accus- 
tomed to use. But, when you come to explain your language, as you do in 
your second letter, and in your sermon just published, you show that you 
have a meaning which I can fully adopt. In the first place, you do what 
many who make much of man's ability neglect to do ; that is, you clearly 
make the distinction between natural ability and inability, and moral. 
Natural ability you explain to be ' £ the intellectual and moral faculties 
which God has given to men, commensurate with his requirements ; " — 
" the plenary powers of a free agent ; " — " such a capacity for obedience 
as creates perfect obligation to obey." You say, it is "what the law 
means, when it commands us to love God with all our heart, and soul, 
and mind, and strength." The sinner, according to your representation, 
is under no natural impossibility to obey God ; that is, it is not impossible 
for him to obey God in the same sense in which it is impossible for him 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



255 



* to create a world." To all this I fully subscribe. Here, then, is no 
room for debate. I have been acquainted with ministers who have differed 
widely in their language respecting human ability, and who have had 
much debate on the subject, and have seemed to entertain opposite opinions. 
But I doubt not they would all coincide with the above statements. They 
would all admit that man has those intellectual and moral faculties which 
constitute him a moral agent, justly accountable for his actions, and under 
perfect obligation to obey the divine law. But all would not judge it best 
to give to these faculties the name of ability, or even of natural ability. 
In regard to the words by which the sentiment held by them all may most 
properly be expressed, there would be a difference. And would not this be 
the only difference ? And would not any dispute on the subject be logom- 
achy ? Suppose a minister of Christ does not like the expression, that 
sinners have a natural ability to obey the divine law. But he admits that 
they have those faculties of mind which constitute them moral and account- 
able beings, put them under a perfect obligation to obey, and bring on 
them a just condemnation for disobedience. That is, he admits all that 
you mean by natural ability, though he does not use the language. 
Respecting this you and he may differ. But, the moment you lay aside the 
word ability, and use other words expressing exactly what you mean by 
this, the difference between you and him is ended. You both believe that 
sinners have all the powers necessary to moral agents, and that they are 
under perfect obligation to do what God commands : though you may, per- 
haps, attach more importance to this view of the subject, and may give it 
more importance in your preaching, than he thinks proper. 

The same as to inability. I find, from your explanations, that you 
believe the sinner to be the subject of all the inability which I have ever 
attributed to him. You say that man, in his unrenewed state, is 64 desti- 
tute of holiness and prone to evil ; " " that he has an inflexible bias of will 
to evil ; " " a sinfulness of heart and obliquity of will, which overrule and 
pervert his free agency only to purposes of evil ; " that he has " an obsti- 
nate will, which as really and certainly demands the interposition of 
special divine influence as if his inability were natural ; " that 66 his natu- 
ral ability never avails, either alone, or by any power of truth, or help of 
faan, to recover him from alienation to obedience;" that "the special 
renovating influence of the Spirit is indispensable to his salvation ; " " that 
motives and obligation are by his obstinacy swept away ; " and "that it is 
the work of the Holy Spirit to convince him of sin, to enlighten his mind, 
to renew his will, and to persuade and enable him to embrace Christ ; 55 



256 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



that <f the powers requisite to free agency, which still remain in degenerate 
man, are wholly perverted, and hopeless of recovery without the grace of 
God ; " "that men, as sinners, are dependent on Christ for a willingness 
to do anything which will save their souls." You hold it to be "a fact, 
that mind, once ruined, never recovers itself;" "that the disease rages 
on, unreclaimed by its own miseries, and only exasperated by rejected 
remedies ; " that " the main-spring of the soul for holy action is gone, 
and that divine influence is the only substitute." 

You not only make these just and moving representations of the state of 
unregenerate man, but you expressly speak of him as having an inability 
to obey God. You make the " distinction between the ability of man as a 
free agent, and his inability as a sinner," and say "it is a distinction 
singularly plain, obvious to popular apprehension, and sanctioned by the 
common sense of all men. ' ' You fully justify the language of the Bible in 
ascribing to man " inability to obey the Gospel." You quote the passages 
which declare that ' e the carnal mind cannot be subject to the law of God ; 
that they who are in the flesh cannot please God ; " and you say the 
inability spoken of means the impossibility* of becoming holy by any philo- 
sophical culture of the natural powers, or by any possible modification of 
our depraved nature ; though youTvery properly take care to guard us 
against supposing that the inability of sinners implies " an absolute natural 
impossibility," or has " a passive, material import." You say, also, that 
" no language is more frequent in the common intercourse of men than the 
terms unable , cannot and the like, to express slight or determined and 
unchanging aversion ; and that the same use of these terms pervades the 
Bible ; " that " inability, meaning only voluntary aversion, or permanent 
choice or disinclination, is ascribed to God, to Christ, and to good men, in 
as strong terms as inability to obey the Gospel is ascribed to sinners." 

In regard to the above-cited representations of yours, I see no ground for 
controversy. I am aware that, in your preaching, you are accustomed to 
say less frequently than many others that sinners cannot believe and 
obey. But, even if you should think it best, as some do, to go further, and 
wholly to avoid expressions of that kind, still, while in other words you 
attribute to the sinner everything which I and others mean by such ex- 
pressions, there would be no difference except in words. In the unmeas- 
ured abundance of remarks which have lately been made on the subject 
of ability and inability, it has not been always remembered that the prin- 
cipal, if not the only difference which exists among thinking and candid 
men, is verbal. If this should be kept in mind, as it ought to be, and if 



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257 



men who are going to dispute would just stop to inquire what they are 
going to dispute about, it would very mucJunarrow the ground of debate, 
and diminish, if not remove, the occasions of strife. 

Still, I hold the question about the use of particular words to be of no 
small importance. Words are the usual means of conveying the thoughts 
of our own minds to the minds of others. If, then, our words are not well 
chosen, we may fail of communicating what we wish, and may communi- 
cate something very different ; and so the gift of speech, instead of con- 
tributing to useful purposes, may become positively hurtful. 

It is not my design to controvert any of the positions which you lay 
down on the subject of ability and inability. Putting a candid and fair 
construction on your language, and considering you as agreeing with those 
excellent authors to whom you refer with approbation, I am satisfied, as I 
have before said, that there is no material difference between your opinions 
and mine on this subject. My remarks, therefore, will relate chiefly, if not 
wholly, to modes of expression ; though not so much to any which you 
employ, as to those employed by others. There is danger, I think, of a 
wrong impression being made on the minds of men, from the manner in 
which some preachers speak respecting the sinner's ability. ' And although 
there is much in what you have lately given to the public which is well 
calculated to guard against this danger, I humbly conceive that still 
greater caution in your manner of treating the subject would do no 
hurt. 

Dr. Bellamy. — "The law is exactly upon a level with our natural 
capacities ; it only requires us to love God with all our hearts. Hence, as to 
natural capacity, all mankind are capable of a perfect conformity to this 
law ; for the law requires of - no man any more than to love God with all 
his heart. The sinning angels have the same natural capacities now as 
they had before they fell ; they have the same faculties, called the under- 
standing and will ; they are still the same beings, as to their natural 
powers. Their temper, indeed, is different, but their capacity is the same ; 
therefore, as to natural capacity, they are as capable of a perfect conform- 
ity to the law of their Creator as ever they were. So Adam, after his fall, 
had the same soul that he had before, as to his natural capacities, though 
of a very different temper ; and therefore, in that respect, was as capable 
of a perfect conformity to the law as ever. And it is plainly the case, that 
all mankind, as to their natural capacities, are capable of a perfect con- 
formity to the law, from this, — that when sinners are converted, they have 
no new natural faculties, though they have a new temper ; and when they 
VOL. ITI. 22* 



258 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



come to love God with all their hearts in heaven, still they will have the 
same hearts, as to their natural faculties, and may in this respect be 
justly looked upon as the very same beings. When, therefore, men cry 
out against the holy law of God, which requires us only to love him with 
all our hearts, and say, "It is not just in God to require more than we 
can do, and then threaten to damn us for not doing," they ought to stay 
a while, and consider what they say, and tell what they mean by their can 
do ; for it is plain that the law is exactly upon a level with our natural 
capacities, and that in this respect we are fully capable of a perfect con- 
formity thereto. And it will be impossible for us to excuse ourselves by an 
inability arising from any other quarter." "And finally, this want of a 
good temper, this voluntary and stubborn aversion to God, and love to 
themselves, the world and sin, is all that renders the immediate influences 
of the Holy Spirit so absolutely necessary, or, indeed, at all needful, to 
recover and bring them to love God with all their hearts." — True Reli- 
gion Delineated, Disc. I. sec. 3. 

Dr. Samuel Hopkins. — "It has been thought and urged by many that 
fallen man cannot be wholly blamable for liis moral depravity, because he 
has lost his power to do that which is good, and is wholly unable to change 
and renew his depraved heart. But what has been before observed must 
be here kept in mind, — that man has not lost any of his natural powers of 
understanding and will, &c, by becoming sinful. He has lost his inclina- 
tion, or is wholly without any inclination to serve and obey his Maker, 
and entirely opposed to it. In this his sinfulness consists ; and in this lies 
his blame and guilt, and in nothing else ; and the stronger and more fixed 
the opposition to the law of God is, and the further he is from any inclina- 
tion to obey, the more blamable and inexcusable he is. Nothing but the 
opposition of the heart, or will of man, to coming to Christ, is, or can be, 
in the way of his coming. . So long as this continues, and his heart is 
wholly opposed to Christ, he cannot come to him ; it is impossible, and will 
continue so, until his unwillingness, his opposition to coming to Christ, be 
removed by a change and renovation of his heart by divine grace, and be 
made willing in the day of God's power." " Nothing is necessary but the 
renovation of the will, in order to set everything right in the human soul." 
— System of Divinity, Part I. ch. 8, and Part n. ch. 4. 

Dr. Smallby. — ' ' The whole Bible evidently goes upon the supposition 
that man is a free agent ; and so do all mankind in their treatment of one 
another." "It is certain that no natural men, except idiots, or such as are 
quite delirious, are totally incapable of good works for want of understand 



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259 



ing." <e The power of will is not the deficiency in natural men." < < Were men 
destitute of understanding to know what is right, or destitute of power to 
choose according to their own disposition, or destitute of members to act 
according to their own choice, they would so far not be proper subjects of 
commands, and no blame would lie upon them for not obeying. But no 
such powers of moral agency are the things wanting in natural men. 
They have hands and heads sufficiently good, and a sufficient power to will 
whatever is agreeable to them. All they want is a good heart. Their 
inability is therefore their sin, and not their excuse." — Sermons, 10, 16. 

Dr. Stephen West. — It therefore appeareth that all those yoluntary 
exercises and affections which are required of us in the divine law may be 
said to be in our power. There is no opposition to any obedience which is 
claimed by the divine law, except it be in our wills. — On Moral Agency, 
Part L sec. 2. 

Dr. Nathah Strong. — Here the proud heart objects. Can this be 
cause of rejoicing, that I am in the hand of a most absolute sovereign 1 ? Ts 
this consistent wirli my dignity as a rational creature and a free agent? 
Truly it is. If thy reason be exercised right, all its dictates will be in con- 
formity to the sovereign counsel and acting of God. If thy heart be 
opposed to infinite reason, or prejudices thy reason, it is the depravity of 
thy heart, and not the sovereignty o^God, which degrades, and takes dig- 
nity away from thee. Neither is thy dignity as a free agent lessened. 
Art thou not as free in sinning as the holy angels and holy men are in 
loving and obeying God ? Is not sin thy choice ? Dost thou not sin 
because thou lovest sin ? The sovereignty of God will never destroy thy 
freedom as a rational agent, but an evil use of this freedom hath made thee 
base, and without repentance will be the means of thy misery forever. — 
Serjnons, vol. i. ser. 4. 

Dr. D wight. — " The nature of this inability to obey the law of God is, 
in my own view, completely indicated by the word indisposition, or the 
word disinclination ." " The real and only reason why we do not perform 
this obedience [perfect obedience to the law of God] is, that we do not 
possess such a disposition as that of angels. Our natural powers are 
plainly sufficient : our inclination only defective." " There is no more diffi- 
culty in obeying God than in doing anything else to which our inclination 
is opposed with equal strength and obstinacy." " Indisposition to come to 
Christ is the true and the only difficulty which lies in our way. Those who 
cannot come, therefore, are those, and those only, who will not. The 
words can and cannot are used in the Scriptures, just as they are used 



260 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



in the common intercourse of mankind, to express willingness or unwil- 
lingness. " " From these observations it is evident that the disobedience of 
mankind is their own fault." And " the degree of our inability to obey the 
divine law does in no case lessen our guilt." And " these observations teach 
us the propriety of urging sinners to immediate repentance." — Theology, 
Sermon 133. 

The Assembly's narrative for 1819 declares that the 
destruction of the finally impenitent is* charged " wholly 
upon their own unwillingness to accept of the merciful pro- 
vision made in the Gospel." 

Rev. John Matthews, D.D., Theological Professor of South Hanover 
Seminary (commended by Dr. Wilson as correct). Our case, though in 
some respects it bears a striking resemblance to those who sleep in the 
grave, yet in others is widely different. They make no opposition to the 
active pursuits of life. Nor does any blame attach to them on account of 
their insensibility. Not so, however, with us. "We have eyes, but we see 
not ; ears, but we hear not ; we have, indeed, all the intellectual faculties 
and moral powers which belong to rational beings ; but they are devoted 
to the world, they are employed against God and his government. 
Instead of love, the heart is influenced by enmity against God. Instead of 
repentance, there is hardness of heart. Instead of faith, by which the 
Saviour is received, there is unbelief, by which, with all his blessings, he 
is rejected. We possess, indeed, all the natural faculties which God 
demands in his service ; but we are without the moral power. We have 
not the disposition, the desire, to employ them in his service. This want 
of disposition, instead of furnishing the shadow of excuse for our unbelief 
and impenitence, is the very essence of sin, the demonstration of our guilt. 
Here, then, is work for Omnipotence itself. Here is not only insensibility 
to be quickened, but here is opposition, here is enmity, to be destroyed. 
The art and maxims of men may change, in some degree, the outward 
appearances, but they never can reach the seat of the disease. There it 
will remain, and there it will operate, after all that created wisdom and 
power can do. That power which can start the pulse of spiritual life within 
us must reach and control the very origin of thought, must change our 
very motives. Our case would be hopeless, if our restoration depended on 
the skill and efforts of created agents. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



261 



I now beg leave to adduce the testimony of Dr. Wilson 
himself. This passage from Dr. Matthews goes the whole 
length of all tSat I hold in respect to natural ability. If 
this is not heresy, it is all I mean, and all I teach, or ever 
did teach. If Dr. Wilson is not opposed to this, then he has 
misunderstood me, and he and I think alike. If he agrees to 
this, then he and I do agree ; for I challenge man or angel to 
find anything like a discrepancy, and I challenge him to find 
any. That he does agree to this is manifest, and two things 
which are equal to the same are equal to each other. In the 
notes he says : 

Thus, it is evident, that without conference or correspondence, or even 
personal acquaintance, there are ministers in the Presbyterian Church 
who can and do speak the same things, who can and do speak the language 
of the true Reformers in all ages. May the Lord increase their number, 
and bind up the breach of his people ! 

My argument is this : — The fact that these writers held 
the opinions which they have here declared I do not bring 
as proof absolute that the Confession of Faith teaches as they 
held ; but that it is altogether probable that the framers of 
that instrument, belonging to this class of men, and standing 
in the same rank with them, did not teach doctrines in direct 
contradiction to this. I have brought down these testimonies 
to the present time, because these expositions throw light 
upon the pages of the Confession, by showing the impression 
which it made on these writers, and the sense in which they 
received it. It would be one of the strongest anomalies in 
the whole history of the human mind, that men who knew all 
about the controversy of Augustine and Pelagius, as well as 
the controversy which preceded, should, when they sat down 
to make a Confession of Faith, go directly against the whole 
stream of the faith of the Church. 



262 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

Such is the testimony of the Christian fathers, and the 
received doctrine of the Orthodox Church, from the beginning 
to this day. I now add : 

That the Bible teaches the free agency and 
natural ability of man to obey or disobey, uncoerced 
by any natural necessity or hindrance, as his quali- 
fication for moral government, and the foundation 
of his obligation and accountability. 

1. That the Bible has been understood to teach this by the 
universal Orthodox Church, is a strong presumptive argu- 
ment that the Bible does teach it. 

It was made to be understood by fallen man, and by com- 
mon uneducated minds, in respect to its most vital doctrines ; 
and there is no doctrine more immediately fundamental than 
that of free agency as the ground,of obligation and account- 
ability. Now, the impression which the Bible makes on 
common minds, who, unsophisticated by theory, read and 
receive its impression, is, that there remains to man, in the 
estimation of Heaven, the capacity of choosing whom he will 
serve, God or the world, and of choosing life or death ; and 
that his obligation to choose the good and refuse the evil orig- 
inates in their constitutional power of choice, with power of 
contrary choice. This is the popular feeling and belief of 
those who read the Bible. 

But, if the uninstructed may be supposed to mistake, it was 
certainly intended to be intelligible to the most talented, 
learned, and holy men, who make the study and translation 
and exposition of it their professional and habitual employment. 

But, unanswerably, the Bible has been understood to teach 
the doctrine of man's free agency and natural ability, in the 
manner I have above explained, by the ablest, holiest, and 
most learned men. These, interpreting the Bible in accord- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



263 



ance with the laws of language and the best operations of 
sanctified intellect, have understood it to teach the natural 
ability of man as the foundation of obligation, and the moral 
inability of man as consisting in a perverse will. If this 
decision of so many men of talented mind, and learning, and 
labor, is false, all attempts to expound the Bible are vain, — ■ 
the Bible is yet a sealed book. — and all the promises of wis- 
dom to those who ask, and of guidance in judgment to the 
meek, have, unanswered, been scattered to the wind. 

2. The implications of the Bible teach the free agency of 
man as including a natural ability to obey, as the qualifica- 
tion for moral government, and the foundation of account- 
ability. 

The directory precepts, the commands and prohibitions, the 
rewards and punishments, the exhortations, warnings, en- 
treaties and expostulations, of the Bible, teach this ; the oath 
of God's preference that fallen man should obey rather than 
disobey, and the regrets and the wonder of heaven at his 
obstinacy and unbelief, teach the same ; and the punishment, 
executed not only for what he did do that was wrong, but be- 
cause in place of this he did not do what was right, — because 
he did not turn, did not repent, did not believe, — all imply 
ability. That such implications are multiplied throughout 
the Bible, will not be denied : that they do strongly imply 
capacity of right or of wrong choice, and are based on that 
supposition, is equally plain. But what would be thought of 
a human government that should address such language to 
stocks and stones, or to animals, or to machines moved by 
steam or water power 7 And why should they be addressed 
to man, if he has no more power to obey than these 1 

If obedience to commands, exhortations and entreaties, is 
prevented by a constitutional necessity a natural impossi- 



264 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



bility of choosing right, and the disobedient choice is also 
the unavoidable, coerced result of a constitutional necessity, 
over which the will has no power, but of which it is the 
unavoidable effect, then choice its as much the effect of a 
natural cause as any other natural effect ; and directory 
precepts, and rewards and penalties, and exhortations and 
entreaties, are as irrelevant and superfluous as if they were 
addressed to our appetites, or applied to secure the beating of 
the heart, or the circulation of the blood. 

If a created constitution secures the volition, whatever it 
may be, what need of another apparatus to produce it ? Is 
not one cause sufficient? and, if it were not, why add an 
apparatus which is totally irrelevant and powerless? The 
adoption of law and motive, then, as the means of moral 
government, implies irresistibly that God's unerring wisdom 
has not intrusted the will of men, like instinctive actions, to 
the guardianship of natural causes ; and has committed it to 
the guidance and guardianship of law, and reward and pun- 
ishment, with such capacity that choice in accordance with 
requirement is possible and reasonable ; and contrary choice 
possible also, and inexcusable, and justly punishable. On 
this argument, we observe : 

That these implications of the Bible do clearly, and in the 
strongest possible manner, treat the doctrine of man's free 
agency and natural ability to obey or disobey the Gospel as 
the foundation of his obligation. Implication is the most 
uniform and established mode of scriptural teaching, in respect 
to natural, mental, and moral philosophy. It teaches almost 
nothing by formal definitions, and regular propositions, and 
proofs ; but assumes and takes for granted whatever truths 
of this kind it has occasion to recognize. But the assump- 
tions of an inspired unerring book, — the assumptions of Him 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



265 



who created and organized the world, and forms and governs 
the mind, — are the most powerful, unequivocal, infallible mode 
of teaching. In demonstration men may err. and come out 
with false conclusions ; but God. in his assumptions, cannot 
err. The Bible, therefore, teaches in the most direct and 
forcible manner the free agency and natural ability of men. as 
qualified subjects of moral government. The supposition that 
these assumptions of the Bible are not true, and that man, 
after all. is not able to modify and diversify his choice indefi- 
nitely, but chooses sin or holiness by a coercive necessity. — 
that he cannot but sin when he does sin. more than rivers of 
muddy water can purify themselves, and stop flowing, — and 
cannot turn and prefer the Creator to the creature, more than 
the prone waters can roll back their tide to their fountains, 
— destroys the credibility of the Bible as an inspired book. 

Hitherto, all the assumptions of the Bible have been 
marked with a uniform and wonderful exactness. 

Its astronomical, geographical, historical, chronological, and 
all other implications, are always verified in the results of the 
strictest examination. 

And it is necessary to the credibility of the Bible that it 
should be so. If it spoke of the visible heavens in a manner 
different from their appearance to the eye, — and if its geog- 
raphy, and chronology, and natural history, were at every 
step falsified by scientific investigations. — if the lion and the 
ostrich and the war-horse of the Bible were verified by no cor- 
respondences in nature, and all its assumption of countries 
and scenery and natural productions were contradicted by 
the condition of the countries alluded to, — it would disprove 
the credibility of the Bible, as an inspired book. Infidels, 
aware of this fact, have made ceaseless efforts to catch the 
Bible tripping somewhere in the field of natural science, and 

vol. in. • 23 



266 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

i 

have exulted exceedingly when they supposed they had de- 
tected a few mistakes of this description. But no sooner did 
the lamp of true philosophy follow the footsteps of their pre- 
sumptuous ignorance, than it dissipated their premature 
rejoicing, by discovering the exact verity of the Bible in all 
its assumptions of the attributes and laws of nature. 
1 But what would be said, if, in tracing the implications of 
the Bible in respect to the qualifications of mind for account- 
able agency and government by law, we should find them all 
contradicted? What if, while natural philosophy verified, 
mental and moral philosophy contradicted, the fundamental 
principles it takes for granted ; the Bible assuming everywhere 
that man is free to choose with power of contrary choice, when, 
in fact, as the truth is developed, it appears that he is no 
more able, as a free agent, to choose at all, than a spark is to 
strike itself out without the collision of flint and steel ; and no 
more able to choose otherwise than he does choose, than water 
is to be fire, or fire water ? 

Christianity could not stand before such contradictions of 
revelation by science. It would open upon us the flood-gates 
of an all-pervading, irresistible infidelity. Nay, it would not 
stop at infidelity, — it would undermine all confidence in con- 
sciousness or argument, and terminate in universal scepticism. 

Our argument against transubstantiation is, that our senses 
are a correct revelation of the reality and attributes of external 
things ; that no written revelation from Heaven can contra- 
dict the testimony of this constitutional revelation by the 
senses concerning attributes of external objects, without sup- 
posing the conflict of contrary revelations, which would not 
only destroy the credibility of the Bible, but vacate all confi- 
dence in the testimony of the senses. 

These implications are corroborated by the analogy of 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



267 



cause and effect through all the works of God ; by the com- 
mon sense and universal consciousness of men ; by all the 
results of mental analysis, uniting philosophers in the defi- 
nition of free agency : and by the concession of individuals 
and the public sentiment of the world, as disclosed in moral 
government as the means of elevating society. But. if these 
implications of the Bible of a free agency and natural ability 
to obey, commensurate with law thus corroborated, are not 
true, it brings on the Bible overwhelming evidence of incor- 
rect teaching : and if. on this tremendous subject, all its im- 
plications are false, the Bible fails to sustain its claims, and 
the whole system of revelation and its doctrines goes out in 
darkness. 

8. The Bible does in no way contradict its own implica- 
tions, by teaching the natural inability of man to render to 
God a holy and spiritual obedience. 

It applies to fallen man, in respect to spiritual obedience, 
the terms cannot \ unable, &c. This is not denied; it 
is admitted — it is insisted on. But the question is, what 
does the term inability mean, when applied to a free agent 
and a totally-depraved sinner? — are the terms cannot, 
unable. &c, used in the common language of men and in the 
Bible only in one sense, and that the sense of a natural im- 
possibility ? If so, the question is settled, and we are at 
fault. But if there are two senses in which these terms are 
used in common and in scriptural language, one of which 
means a natural impossibility, and the other respects an event 
possible in respect to the capacity of the agent, but pre- 
vented by a perverse choice. — then, to deny this distinction, 
and condense both, by an arbitrary assertion, into a natural 
impossibility, is to beg the question in dispute, — to do vio- 
lence to the laws of exposition, and substitute assertion for 



268 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



argument. Yet this, so far as I am apprized, is the course 
■which has been adopted to disprove the natural ability of man 
to obey. Those passages which mean aversion and obstinacy 
in sin, and the certainty of his perdition without the special 
grace of Gocl, are assumed to mean natural impossibility. 
The terms " cannot and unable," which have no reference to 
his capacity as a free agent, and respect only and wholly his 
character and obstinacy as a sinner, are quoted, unexplained 
and unproved in respect to their assumed meaning; and, 
merely by the reiteration of unexplained sound, the doctrine 
of moral inability is attempted to be battered down, and that 
of a natural inability to be established. But who does not 
see that I have an equal right to assume the meaning of 
moral inability as the only meaning of the term, and, by the 
power of reiterated assertion, to beat down my adversary, as 
he has to battle me with unexplained words, taken for 
granted, by force of mere assertion ; and that both of us, in 
doing so, w T ould violate the laws of philology and correct con- 
troversy ? As soon as the meaning of the texts applied to 
man and quoted to prove his natural inability are explained, 
it appears that they respect his character as a sinner, and 
not his constitution as a free agent, and are nothing to the 
purpose to prove what they are quoted to prove. If they 
mean a moral inability, the mere voluntary aversion of a free 
agent to obey the Gospel, then they do not mean or teach the 
natural impossibility of believing ; and the moral inability of 
the sinner may be perfectly consistent with the natural ability 
of the free agent. 

With this lamp in our hand, all becomes clear. When- 
ever the Bible speaks of inability in moral things, it speaks 
of the sin of the will, its aversion to good. Yet where has 
Dr. Wilson, in the w T hole course of his argument in support 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



269 



of his charges against me, ever once defined the term can- 
not ? Where has he recognized this obvious distinction, and 
the manner of its application ? He has insisted on a single 
meaning of the term, which meaning he assumes, and then 
denies all right of explanation. As soon as the word is ex- 
plained, he is gone. These words, like all other words, are 
to be tried by the principles of exposition, by the established 
usus loquendi, and not by their sound on the tympanum of 
the ear ; or else Jesus Christ might as well have spoken 
Greek to men who understood nothing but English. Take an 
illustration on this subject : Suppose an assault was commit- 
ted ; the case is carried into court, where the assault is ad- 
mitted, and the only question arising is a question of damages. 
A witness appears and is asked, " Did you see this assault V 
"Yes, I saw A strike B." " How hard did he strike him?" 
" I don't know : I can't exactly tell how hard ; A was a very 
nervous man." " ! " cries the lawyer in favor of A, " if 
he was a very nervous man, he must have been too feeble to 
hurt him much." Another witness is introduced and asked, 
"How hard did A strike B? " "I can't exactly tell," he says. 
" What sort of a man was A ?" " ! he was a very stout, 
brawny man ; a very nervous, athletic man." " Then," says 
the attorney on the other side, " if he was a nervous man, no 
doubt he must have hurt my client exceedingly, and he is 
entitled to heavy damages." On this a dispute arises as to 
the testimony, and it turns on the meaning of the word ner- 
vous. One of the attorneys brings into court Webster's 
dictionary, and shows that nervous means "of w T eak nerve, 
feeble: " and there he stops. Would this settle the question? 
Would this determine the meaning of the testimony? Just 
so with the word inability. It has two meanings, according 
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as it is applied. It may either mean a total want of power, 
or a total want of inclination. 

4. The subject, and the circumstances of the case, forbid 
the construction of a natural impossibility, as relating to man 
in the case of duty ; because the subject is admitted to be a 
free agent, and free agency is known and defined, and by the 
Confession itself is admitted to be, the capacity of choice, with 
power of contrary choice. A free agent to whom spiritual 
obedience is a natural impossibility, is a contradiction. By 
the laws of exposition, I am entitled to all the collateral evi- 
dence which can be thrown upon the meaning of the Confes- 
sion from the several sources of expository knowledge already 
enumerated, and which I will not here recapitulate. Dr. 
Wilson insists that man is able to do nothing ; but nothing 
is a slender foundation on which to rest the justice of the 
Eternal Throne, in condemning men to everlasting punish- 
ment, and feeble indeed would be God's gripe upon the con- 
science. But it will be easy to show that the strongest 
passages relied on to prove natural inability are forbidden to 
be interpreted in that sense by the established laws of expo- 
sition. For example, it is said, John 6 : 44 : " No man can 
come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw 
him." The nature of the inability here declared is indicated 
by the kind of drawing which is to overcome it. This is 
taught in the verse immediately following, and elsewhere in 
the Bible. u It is written in the prophets, and they shall be 
all taught of God : every man, therefore, that hath heard 
and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me." The 
drawing of the Father, then, without which no man can come, 
according to prophetic exposition, quoted and sanctioned by 
our Redeemer, is in being " taught of God," in hearing and 



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learning of the Father: and this is precisely the doctrine of 
our Confession. "God maketh the reading, but especially 
the preaching of his Word, an effectual means of convincing 
and converting sinners.' 5 " I drew them vrith cords of a man. 
with bands of love." This is the drawing : with the bands of 
a man. not by the attraction of gravity. Suppose the planets 
should stop in their course, would God. do you think, attempt 
to overcome the vis inertia of matter by the "'reading and 
especially the preaching of his Word " ] Would he send the 
ten commandments to start them ? or would he draw " them 
with cords of a man. and with bands of love,' 3 to move onward 
in the orbits % Yet the Confession, and the Catechism, and 
the Bible, all as certainly teach that the impediment to be 
overcome is overcome by moral means : by the truth, by the 
Word of God. by the reading and especially the preaching of 
his Word, made effectual by the Holy Spirit. It cannot, 
therefore, be any natural inability ; any such inability as 
renders believing a natural impossibility, which is removed in 
regeneration. But it is said "the carnal mind is enmity 
against God."' and that this is an involuntary condition of 
mind. But is it a natural impossibility for any enemy to be 
reconciled to him ? The text does not say that fallen man 
cannot be reconciled to God ; but it says that the carnal mind 
cannot be subject to the law : " It is not subject to the law 
of God. neither indeed can be. 55 Carnality can never be so 
modified as to become obedience. Again, the " natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Does this 
mean that an unconverted man can have no just intellectual 
conceptions of the Gospel, of truth and duty, in order to his 
obeying it ) How, then, can he be any more to blame than the 
heathen, who have never heard of Christ ? And what better 



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condition are men in, with the Bible which they cannot 
understand, than the heathen are, with no Bible at all ? But 
if by receiving and knowing be meant a willing reception 
and an experimental knowledge, which is a common use of the 
terms, then the text teaches simply that until the heart is 
changed there can be no experimental religion in the soul ; 
that a holy heart is indispensable, not to intellectual percep- 
tion, but to spiritual discernment, to Christian experience. 

5. The Bible not only does not teach the natural inability 
of man to obey the Gospel, but it teaches directly the con- 
trary. The moral law itself bounds the requisition of love 
by the strength of the subject. Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God — with what? — with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind ; — and with what else 1 — with 
all thy strength. But, if heart and soul and mind and 
strength constitute no strength, how is he bound by such a 
command as this ? In the same manner, constitutional powers, 
bearing such a relation to obedience as constitutes obligation, 
are recognized in the Bible. See Isaiah 5 : 1, 2, 3, 4. Was 
there nothing in the soil and culture of this vineyard w T hich 
rendered fruit, in respect to the soil, a natural possibility? 
But the vineyard was the house of Israel, the owner was 
God, and the fruit demanded was evangelical obedience ; and 
God, the owner, decided that what he had done rendered obe- 
dience practicable and punishment just. He calls upon the 
common sense and common justice of the universe to judge 
between him and his vineyard. He asks w 7 hether he had not 
done that for his vineyard which laid a just foundation for it 
to bring forth good instead of wild grapes, and declares that 
the bringing forth wild grapes was a thing enormous, and 
goes on to pronounce judgment upon his vineyard. 

So in the parable of the talents. The owner committed a 



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certain portion of his money to every man, according to his 
several ability. These servants, again, represent the Jewish 
nation. The talents represent Gospel privileges; the im- 
provement to be made believing, and the misimprovement 
sloth and unbelief. The trust was graduated in proportion to 
the ability of each man. There was ability, therefore, and 
the servant who improved his trust received a reward. But 
the servant who made excuses pleaded his natural inability, — 
6i I knew that thou wert a hard master, reaping where thou 
hadst not sown, and gathering where thou hadst not strewed 
[worse than the task-masters of Egypt], and I was afraid. I 
dared not undertake to do anything with my talent. I 
thought it would be safest to hide it, and run no risk." But 
his Lord said to him, " Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou 
kne west that I was a tyrant, demanding the improvement of 
gifts not bestowed. How couldst tJiou suppose, then, that I 
would not exact the improvement of what was given ? Why 
clidst thou not put my money to the exchangers? and 
then I should have received my own with usury. Do I 
demand effects without causes ? Take him away ; thrust him 
into outer darkness ; he has libelled his Maker, he has slan- 
dered his God." 

6. The broad principle is laid down in the Bible that abil- 
ity is the ground and measure of obligation. According to 
that which a man hath, and not according to that which he 
hath not ; to whom much is given, of him shall much be re- 
quired, but to whom little is given, of him shall little be 
required.— is the language of the equitable Ruler of the 
world. But, if ability is not needful to obligation, why ob- 
serve this rule ? — why not reverse it ? Why not require 
little of him to whom much is given, and much from him to 
whom little is given ? Present this principle to any man but 



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VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



an idiot, and see what he will say to such a proceeding. 
There is not a human being whose sense of justice would not 
revolt from it. And shall man be more just than God ? Nor 
is the principle of graduating responsibility by ability a lim- 
ited rule of the divine government, applicable only in partic- 
ular cases ; the rule is general, it is universal, it applies to 
every free agent in the universe. 

7. The implications in the Bible of man's ability, as a 
free agent, to render to God spiritual obedience, are many 
and irresistible. 

Deut. 30 : 15, 19. — See, I have set before thee this day life and good, 
and death and evil ; in that I command thee to love the Lord thy God. 
Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. 

Ps. 81 : 10, 11, 12, 13. — Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But 
my people would not hearken to my voice. ' So I gave them up to their 
own hearts' lusts. 0, that my people had hearkened unto me ! 

Ezekiel 18 : 2. — They said, God punishes us for the sins of our fathers. 
But God replied (verses 20, 30, 31, 32), The son shall not bear the iniquity 
of the father. Repent, and turn from all your transgressions and make 
you a new heart ; for why will ye die, house of Israel ? For I have no 
pleasure in the death of him that dieth. Wherefore turn yourselves and 
live ye. 

Luke 13 : 34. — 0, Jerusalem, &c. &c, how often would I have 
gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her 
wings, and ye would not ! 

Prov. 1 : 24, 25, 29. — Because I have called and ye refused, &c. &c, 
therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with 
their own devices. 

These, and innumerable such implications, indicate God's 
moral government of mercy over a world of rebel free agents, 
including precepts and prohibitions, and rewards and punish- 
ments, and exhortations and warnings, and entreaties, and 
even regrets, when incorrigible rebellion renders punishment 
just and indispensable. 



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275 



Suppose, then, all those thus addressed had replied : 11 We 
should be glad, Lord, to love and obey Thee, if we could ; 
but thou knowest we have lost all power and ability, of every 
kind, to love and obey." Would the Searcher of hearts have 
said to them, 11 1 know that you can do nothing of that kind 
yourselves : but you can pray to me to help you, and you can 
read your Bible and attend public worship, and commit the 
Catechism, and lead a moral life ; for as I live, saith the Lord, 
I have no pleasure in your inability ; therefore repent, and 
turn from all your transgressions, and make you a new heart, 
for why will ye die, house of Israel " 1 

But does God call men to turn, when a natural impossibil- 
ity lies in the way ? Would he say to them, " See, I have 
set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, in 
that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to 
walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his 
statutes, and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multi- 
ply. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, 
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ; 
therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live ; 
that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou 
mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him. 

If it be said that men are free to evil and accountable for 
doing wrong, I answer, if God commanded men to sin, that 
might suffice : but, if he commands them to stop sinning, and 
they have no free agency to do it. and it is a natural impossi- 
bility to stop, how does free agency to do what is forbidden 
create obligation to abstain and do what is commanded, when 
they have no power 3 Besides, could they sin without ability 
to sin ? How, then, can they obey without ability to obey ? 
And. if they have free agency to obey, that is just what I am 
contending for. For they can no more obey without natural 



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power than they can sin without natural power. If man as a 
free agent has not natural power to obey, then commands, 
and exhortations, and entreaties, and expostulations, might as 
well be addressed to men without the five senses, commanding 
them, on pain of eternal death, to see, hear, feel, taste and 
smell. This argument was used by Pelagius and Arminius, 
and, in the forms they urged it, was easily answered ; they 
brought it forward to prove not only that man is naturally 
able to obey God, but to prove that he actually does obey the 
Gospel without special grace, — that his will is under no bias 
from the fall, and that his moral ability is so unperverted 
that it is sufficient, without regeneration, to do all that God 
has commanded. Augustine maintained that the will was 
entirely struck out of balance ; Pelagius, on the contrary, 
maintained that it remained in delightful equilibrium, and, 
consequently, that no grace of God was needed to determine 
it to a right choice, insisting that dependence on grace to 
change the will was inconsistent with commands and exhorta- 
tions, fee. But Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and all the Ke- 
formers, fully admit the ability of man as a free agent, and 
deny that his moral inability and dependency as a sinner 
supersede obligation, invitation, and command. The natural 
ability of man is a point which has never been controverted 
by the Church at large, and generally only by heretics. The 
orthodox portion of the Church of God never has questioned 
it, and has denied only moral ability, that is, a right disposi- 
tion or will, in opposition to . the Arminian and Pelagian 
heresies. 

The Scriptures and our Confession both teach, that God 
is not the author of sin, — that he neither creates it, nor 
devises plans nor adapts means to break the force of his own 
laws and administration, so as purposely to prevent obedience 



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and produce sin, as the natural and necessary result of his 
own power and agency. You may search the word and 
works of God with a microscope, and you cannot find any 
such thing as a plan tending to prevent obedience and to 
produce sin. You may light up ten thousand suns, and 
search every cavern and deep recess of nature, and you can 
find no such thing. In the development of his character, 
law, gospel and providence, he has produced powerful means 
of drawing his subjects to obedience, unobstructed by any 
counteracting influences designed to prevent obedience and 
produce sin. He has given, no law against the moral law, 
and affords no motive to disobedience, and administers no 
providence to defeat the administration which corroborates the 
powers of law. All the tendencies of his government, law, 
gospel, and providential administration, are self-consistent 
and in unison. God tempteth not any man, neither can he 
be tempted of evil. The whole tendency of his government, 
in the hands of the Mediator, is to lead the ruined rebel to 
break off his sins by repentance, and not to induce him to 
persist in them. God is not the author of sin. It wars 
against the whole moral influence of his glorious character, 
law, gospel and government. Nor in its existence in fallen 
man "is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is 
the liberty or contingency of second causes taken aw T ay, but 
rather established." 

Of course, I reject all theories of the origin or continuance 
of evil which make God the author of sin. — The Gnostic, 
that he placed man in contact with sinful matter, to be una- 
voidably corrupted ; or the Manichean, that it is a part of the 
created substance of the soul ; or that it is a created instinct 
of our nature, perverting the will by the power of a constitu- 
tional necessity ; or that all agency in creatures is impossible, 

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278 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



and, therefore, that God creates sinful and holy exercises by 
a direct efficiency, in such quantities and proportions as please 
him. I hold, with the Confession, the doctrine of free 
agency, before and since the fall, sufficient, while upheld, to 
make holiness obligatory, and account for sin without suppos- 
ing God to be its author, in a way which would make him 
contradict himself, and oppose his own laws and government, 
and do violence to the will of the creatures, and destroy the 
liberty of choice, determining it to evil by an absolute neces- 
sity of nature. To the system of free agency, then, which 
teaches that to fallen man " no ability of any kind" exists to 
obey the Gospel, or is required to constitute a perfect obliga- 
tion to do so, and a just desert of eternal punishment for not 
obeying, I oppose the testimony of the whole Orthodox 
Church, and that of the Bible. 

Finally. The Confession of Faith teaches plainly and 
unanswerably the free agency and natural ability of man, 
as capable of choice, with the power of contrary election. 

In confirmation of this position, I refer to the Confession, 
chap. ix. sec. 1. 

God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is 
neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of natoire determined, to good 
or evil. 

Now, if this declaration has respect to man, as a race, — if 
the term man, as here employed, is generic, including Adam 
and all his posterity, — then the passage quoted settles the 
question. The whole turns on what is the meaning of the 
word man. Because, if it means man as fallen, if it means 
Adam's posterity, my opponent is gone, — the ground is 
swept from under him. He must prove that man means 
Adam, and Adam only, and Adam before the fall, or else the 



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Confession is against him. Now. what is the subject of the 
chapter to which this section belongs ? It respects free Trill, 
— that is. free will in the theological sense of that phrase, as 
the doctrine was discussed between Augustine and Pelagius, 
a considerable time since the fall. — and has respect toman in 
the generic sense. That this is so is plain, from the scrip- 
tural references quoted in support of the positions taken. If 
the declarations of the chapter had respect solely to Adam, 
the scriptural references would be to Adam ; but these 
references do not refer to him, but do refer to his fallen pos- 
terity. They drive the nail and clinch it. See what they 
are : 

But every man is tempted when lie is drawn away of his own lust and 
enticed. — James 1 : 14. 

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set 
before you life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore choose life, that 
both thou and thy seed may live. — Deut. 30 : 19. 

These are the scriptural proofs selected and adduced by 
the Assembly of Divines, as exhibiting the Scripture author- 
ity on which the declarations in the chapter are made ; and 
what are they ) Listen to them : 

God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is 
neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good 
or evil. — Confess, of Faith, ix. 1. 

If this means Adam, all I say is, that they use very bad 
grammar, and have made a most wonderful mistake in the 
references quoted. To say that the will of Adam before the 
fall is neither forced nor determined by necessity, is non- 
sense, and makes the second section tautology. 



280 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



The first, if it refers to Adam in innocency, says he had 
natural liberty of will, and was not forced or determined by 
necessity to choose good or evil; and the second section 
repeats the same thing, — that man, in his state of innocency, 
had freedom and power to do good or evil. 

I take the question as settled, then, that "man" here 
means man as a race, and that Cl will " here means the will 
of man as a race ; and it is what I hold, and what all the 
Church hold ; and it is the fair meaning of the Confession. 
What follows in the next section, with respect to man in a 
state of innocency, is a confirmation and an illustration of the 
doctrine as thus explained. 

Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do 
that which is good and well pleasing to God'; but yet mutably, so that he 
might fall from it (Confess, of Faith, ix. 2). That is, his free agency 
included the natural power of choosing right or of choosing wrong. 

Adam had the natural ability to stand : and he had it in a 
state of balanced power, in which he was capable of choosing 
right and able to choose wrong. • 

. Then comes section the third, which contains a description 
of the change induced by the fall ; a change which 
- respected the will of man, not his constitutional powers, but 
their voluntary exercise. 

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost — 

Lost ! — what ? His natural ability to choose right, so that 
he is now forced and determined by an absolute necessity to 
do good or evil ? Not a word of it. It was not that ; it was 
something else he lost ; and thereupon turns the question 
between us. 'The Confession proceeds : 

lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salva- 



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Hon ; so, as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and 
dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to pre- 
pare himself thereunto. 

He lost "all ability of will." Does this mean that, in 
respect to the power of choice, he fell into a state of natural 
inability ? Not at all. He had the power of choice as much 
as ever. But he had lost all moral ability, that is, all inclin- 
ation to choose what was good. His will was altogether 
averse from it. He was altogether unwilling. He fell into 
an inability of will ; that is, into a state of obstinate unwil- 
lingness. This is the common use of terms until this day. 
Moral inability means not impossibility, but it means unwil- 
lingness. Man became "dead." But how? Not by the 
annihilation of his natural powers, not dead in respect to the 
natural liberty of his will, but dead in sin ; so as not to be 
able, by his own strength (of will), to convert himself, or to 
prepare himself thereunto. I say "Amen!" this is my 
doctrine. The word " able," and the word "strength," are 
both employed in a moral sense, and in a moral sense only ; 
and, thus interpreted, the Confession is perfectly consistent 
with itself. 

The fourth section of this chapter is a corroboration of the 
same position : 

When God converts the sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, 
he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone 
enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good ; yet so 
as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor 
only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. 

Frees him from what ? From his free agency ? from the 
constitutional powers of his being ? No. Frees him from 
his bondage under sin ; that is, from his bias to evil, from his 

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moral inability. And how is he freed? The Confession 
says it is by grace. Wonderful grace it would be to restore 
his natural powers ! One would think this was more like 
justice than grace. But it is argued that if this bondage 
means mere obstinacy of will, man would not need divine 
aid. Indeed, so far is this from being true, that no creature 
does need divine aid so much as a free agent obstinately bent 
upon evil. My children were free agents, but they needed 
aid, to secure the performance of such duties as they were 
naturally able, but as fallen creatures disinclined, to perform. 
None possess such a power of resistance as a free agent 
under moral inability or aversion to good. It is a bias which 
he himself never does effectually resist. God must deliver 
him ; and everything short of divine aid is short of his neces- 
sity. Men are sometimes fully sensible of this. I have 
heard of a man, under the power of the habit of intemperance, 
who cried out to his friends, " Help me ! help me ! wake me up ! 
save me, or I fall ! " The love of liquor had not destroyed his 
natural ability. But he felt that his moral ability — his ability 
of will to resist temptation — was gone. The distinction is 
plain and easy ; and it is one that we can all understand an 
the every-day affairs of life. If we see our friends in danger 
of being overcome by evil habit, Ave brace them against its 
power ; we perceive their moral inability, and we bring them 
all the aid in our power. The phrase " to incline and 
enable" is just as consistent with a moral inability as it is 
with a natural. Our natural bondage is that into which we 
are born by nature, — our constitutional bias to evil, called 
original sin. And it is grace, and grace alone, that enables a 
man to resist and overcome it. This I believe ; this I hold ; 
this I have felt. We shall be inclined to good alone only 
when we reach the state of glory. 



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This reasoning is corroborated by the doctrine of the Con- 
fession in respect to God's decrees. 

God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own 
will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so as 
thereby neither is God the author of sin , nor is violence offered to the will 
of the creature, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken 
away, but rather established. 

Here are two points of doctrine laid down. First, that by 
the decrees of God no violence is done to the will of the 
creature ; its natural liberty is not invaded or destroyed by 
sin. It is not in God's decree that it should be forced or 
divested of its natural power, but the contrary. 

There is nothing in God's whole plan that amounts to the 
destruction of the natural liberty of the will. Now, if I can 
show that, on the contrary, his decrees confirm it, why, then 
I carry my exposition. But what says the chapter 7 

God from all eternity did freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever 
comes to pass. 

That God did, in some sense, ordain the fall, and all its 
connections and consequences, cannot, then, be denied. But 
how were these ordained 1 The Confession tells us how : 

It was, " so that no violence is offered to the will of the creature, nor is 
the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather 
established." 

Here it is disclosed that the natural liberty of the will is 
not destroyed by the fall, but rather established ; instead of 
taking away free agency, and the capacity of choice, God 
decreed to establish it. Whatever has been the wreck and 
ruin produced by the fall, the free agency originally conferred 
upon man has not been removed. Therefore it was that I 



284- 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



pressed this book to my heart, because it assures me that the 
righteous Governor of the world has done no violence to those 
powers and faculties of man which are essential to his moral 
government. 

But I am happy, on this subject, in being able to adduce 
an authority altogether above my own. What did the Assem- 
bly of Divines mean by this word contingency ? The cele- 
brated Dr. Twiss, who was their prolocutor or moderator, must 
be high authority on that question. He says : 

Whereas we see some things come to pass necessarily, some contin- 
gently, so God hath ordained that all things shall come to pass ; but 
necessary things necessarily, and contingent things contingently, that is, 
avoidably and with a possibility of not coming to pass. For every univer- 
sity scholar knows this to be the notion of contingency. — Chr. Spec. , vol. 
vn. No. 1, p. 165. 

Dr. Twiss is speaking of natural and moral events, — the 
only events which exist in the universe ; and he says that 
God decreed that all things should come to pass ; that natural 
events should come to pass necessarily ; and that moral 
events, which are acts of will, and which he calls " contingent 
things," shall come to pass contingently ; which he explains 
to mean avoidably, and with a natural possibility of not com- 
ing to pass. He is speaking of the moral world, and he says 
that in the natural world all is necessary as opposed to 
choice, but that in the moral world all is free as opposed to 
coercion, or natural necessity, or inability of choice ; and that 
every act of will, though certain in respect to the decree, is 
yet free and uncoerced in respect to the manner of its coming 
to pass, and as to any natural necessity, always avoidable, — 
not avoided, — but, according to the very nature of free 



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agency, always avoidable, in accordance with the language of 
the Confession, ch. ix. sec. 1 [quoted above]. 

Now we shall show how God executes his decrees; and 
what says the Confession on this point? (See ch. v. 
sec. 2.) 

Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first 
cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly [that is, with 
entire certainty] , yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall 
out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely or 
contingently [that is, the volitions of the mind come to pass freely, and, 
as opposed to any natural necessity, avoidably]. 

The account given of the actual effects of the fall is a still 
further confirmation of our exposition. — Ch. VI. sec. 2. 

By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion 
with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties 
and parts of soul and body. 

Also Shorter Catechism, Ques. and Ans. 17, 18 : 

Q. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind ? 

A. The fall brought mankind into a state of sin and misery. 

Q. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell ? 

A. The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists in the guilt 
of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption 
of his whole nature, which is commonly called Original Sin, together with 
all actual transgressions which proceed from it. 

If Dr. Wilson's position is true, and man lost the natural 
power of right choice, this answer should have been changed, 
and we should have been told that the fall brought man- 
kind into a state of natural impotency. But it says no such 
thing. It says it brought him into a state of sin. What ! 
Can a man sin without being a free agent ? The effects here 



286 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



stated are the loss of holiness and the corruption of his nature. 
But surely the corruption of nature is not the annihilation of 
nature ; his nature must still exist, in order to be corrupt. 
What, then, is its corruption 1 It is death in sin ; not the 
death of its natural powers. There is no destruction of the 
agent. But there is a perversion of those powers which do 
constitute his agency. So much for the testimony of the Con- 
fession of Faith. 

I said that in expounding a written instrument we are 
always to consider the attributes of the subject concerning 
which it speaks ; that its language is to be expounded in 
reference to the nature of the thing. The Confession teaches 
that man was endowed with a natural liberty of choice, and 
has suffered no perversion but that fchich consists in obstinate 
choice. His natural liberty remains, but in regard to moral 
liberty — that is, an unbiased will — the balance is wrong. 

Such are my views of the natural ability of fallen man, and 
my evidence that they are just. 

It is the ability of an intelligent, accountable agent for the 
exercise of his own powers under law, and in the view of 
motives, and with a sense of obligation, and just liability to 
reward and punishment. Nothing short of this distinguishes 
man from animals, or dust and ashes. If some such power 
be not real, no difference can be pointed out between free 
agency and fatality, and no reason assigned why God should 
govern man by moral laws, and hold him accountable, rather 
than any other of the products of his power and natural 
government. I say, therefore, with Tertullian, 

A law would not have been imposed on a person who had not in his 
power the obedience due to the law ; nor again would transgression have 
been threatened with death, if the contempt also of the law were not placed 
to the account of man's free will. 



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287 



He who should be found to be good or bad by necessity, and not volun- 
tarily, could not with justice receive the retribution either of good or evil. 
-P, 64. 

I now proceed to explain the doctrine of Man's Moral 
Inability, as understood in every age by the Orthodox Church, 
and as taught in the Confession of Faith and the Bible, and 
as I hold and teach it. 

I am aware that the doctrine of a moral inability, as dis- 
tinguished from natural impossibility, is regarded by some as 
a fiction of the imagination, or a mere metaphysical subtilty, 
of no practical utility ; while all its tendencies are powerfully 
toward the territories of dangerous error. But when the 
nature and evidence of moral inability shall have been stated, 
it will appear, as I hope, to such persons, that they have not, 
as Edwards says, "well considered the matter; 7 ' and that 
there is a distinction between natural impossibility and a moral 
inability, palpable and salutary, without denying the depend- 
ence of man for effectual calling on the special influence of 
the Holy Ghost, or implying the doctrine of self-regeneration 
and salvation without an atonement by the deeds of the 
law. 

By natural inability I understand the fact that an agent, 
though ever so willing, cannot do his duty, from defect of 
capacity ; and by moral inability, the fact that his capacity as 
an agent renders possible and makes obligatory the perform- 
ance of duty, so that it is prevented only by an existing con- 
trary choice, an obstinate refusal, including in the term not 
only single consecutive volitions, but that general and abiding 
decision of the mind for God or against him — which consti- 
tutes holy or unholy character, and includes what Edwards 
denominates "the will and affections of the soul," and Tur- 
retin " a habit of corrupt will." 



288 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



This voluntary hindrance of spiritual obedience is called 
inability, in accordance, as I shall show, with the uniform use 
of speech in all the languages of men, applying the terms can- 
not, unable, &c., to one who is prevented from doing his duty 
by the slightest disinclination, up to the most terrible obsti- 
nacy of will. In reference to spiritual obedience, it is called 
inability, also, I have no doubt, from the great and universal 
difficulty experienced by man in changing from a wrong to a 
right decision of mind in respect to God and duty, as well as 
from the absolute certainty that without the Holy Ghost the 
obstinacy of the human will will produce its deadly results 
with a certainty equal to the connection between natural 
causes and their effect, though not in the same manner, or 
with the same results as to accountability and desert of pun- 
ishment. It is called in the Creeds of the Reformation, and 
in our own Confession, inability of will, because spiritual 
obedience is prevented only by the perverse action of the will ; 
and to indicate that free agency and natural ability never avail 
in fallen man to overcome the bias of his will to evil, under 
the combined influence of original and actual sin ; that with 
the ability to choose right, resulting from free agency and 
creating obligation, he actually chooses wrong, and only wrong, 
until renewed by the Holy Ghost. 

It is called a moral inability also in the language of Tur- 
retin. 

1. Objectively, because it has respect to moral duties. 2. As to its 
origin, because it is brought on one's self ; which arises from voluntary 
corruption, voluntarily acquired by the sin of man. 3. As to its character 
(formaliter), because that is voluntary and culpable which is founded in 
a habit of corrupt will. 

By all this I understand Turretin to mean, that the moral 
inability of man is a reality, is distinct from a natural im- 



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289 



possibility, and is called moral because it respects the aver- 
sion of mind to the performance of spiritual duties, brought 
upon the race by the voluntary transgression of Adam, and 
eventuating in a habit of corrupt will. To all of which I 
subscribe. 

It is in this sense that the term moral inability is used by 
Edwards : 

We are said to be naturally unable to do a thing which we cannot do if 
we will, because what is commonly called nature does not allow of it. 
Moral inability is the want of inclination ; or, a contrary inclination. 

This impotency of will to good, according to the Bible and 
our Confession, and the received doctrines of the Church, 
includes the constitutional bias to actual sin produced in all 
men by the faU, anterior to intelligent, voluntary action, 
which, thougli it destroys not that natural liberty with which 
God hath endowed the will, nor forces nor determines it by 
any necessity of nature to the choice of evil instead of good, 
does, nevertheless, evince that mankind are, as Edwards says, 
il under the influence of a prevailing, effectual tendency to 
that sin and wickedness which imply their utter and eternal 
ruin.' 5 

To this bias is added, in fallen adult man, that terrific deci- 
sion of the mind in favor of the world and against God, which 
never changes but under the special influence of the Spirit in 
our effectual calling. 

To which may be added the formidable, accumulating in- 
fluence of habit, which, though it forces not the will, or de- 
termines its perverse obstinacy by any necessity of nature, 
does yet, in accordance with the known laws of perverted 
mind, powerfully corroborate the perverting influences of both 
original and actual sin, by impairing the moral sensibilities of 

vol. in. 25 



290 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the soul, and the power of motive to good, while it fearfully 
augments the temptations to evil, and facilitates the liability, 
and diminishes the resistance to a compliance. 

This is the view of the subject which is recognized in our 
Confession, and taught in the Bible, and held forth in the 
creeds and standard orthodox works of every age as the 
received doctrine of the Church. 

In my preaching, I have not been accustomed to employ 
the terms natural and moral inability, because they are the 
technical terms of theological controversy, around which prej- 
udice has gathered odium and mistake. But in the present 
case I have no other alternative, because it is on these tech- 
nical terms that the whole controversy turns. 

I say, then, that our Confession, ^hile it teaches un- 
answerably the free agency and natural ability of man to 
choose right as well as wrong, teaches with equal clearness his 
moral inability as consisting in a settled aversion of will to all 
spiritual obedience, until called efficaciously by the Word and 
Spirit of God. 

1. There is no necessity for interpreting the terms of the 
Confession, as applied to fallen man, to mean the natural 
impossibility of obedience. 

The various phrases expressing inability are by common 
use in all languages applied to express whatever is prevented 
voluntarily, either by slight disinclination, or the most pow- 
erful, immutable decision of the mind. We use the terms 
cannot, unable, &c, continually to express whatever for the 
slightest reasons we do not find it convenient or feel inclined to 
do, and where no natural impossibility exists, or is thought of. 
As there is, therefore, no necessity to interpret the terms 
inability and unable, when applied to fallen man, as teaching 
the natural impossibility of obedience, so also, from the estab- 



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291 



lislied use of the terms in all languages, there is no authority 
for doing it. 

The decision and permanence of sinful preference affords 
no evidence of its natural and unavoidable necessity. 

Edwards has shown that certainty and uniformity of right 
or wrong action does not decide the manner of it, as being 
voluntary or coerced. 

He shows, in accordance with our Confession, that God is 
free in his decrees and their execution, as opposed to the 
coercion of fate ; and that Christ, though his character and 
life were foretold and certain, and he went as it was written 
of him, acted nevertheless with entire and uncoerced volun- 
tariness. The same principle holds good in the case of Nebu- 
chadnezzar and Judas, and sinners given up of God. Though 
their conduct may be certain as a matter of fact, it is not 
certain by a coerced necessity, but is in the highest sense free 
and accountable ; and such throughout are the implications of 
the Confession and the Bible. Because the moral inability of 
man, therefore, is as immutable to all motive and human 
effort as the effects of natural causes, it does not follow that it 
is made certain and immutable by a natural necessity. 

The doctrine of the moral impotency of man is not incon- 
sistent with any of the other doctrines of the Bible. 

It is not inconsistent with the doctrine of our entire and 
absolute dependence for regeneration on the special influence 
of the Holy Spirit ; for, while it includes a natural ability of 
obedience, as the ground of obligation, it teaches the certainty 
of its obstinate perversion, creating, in point of fact, a necessity 
of the Holy Ghost to renew as real and as great as if the 
impediment were a natural impossibility. It no more implies 
self-regeneration, than if the work of the Spirit, in subduing 
the will, consisted in creating new faculties ; the influence of 



292 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the Spirit to make man willing being just as indispensable to 
his salvation, as if it were indispensable to make him naturally 
able. Nor does that ability to obey, whose exercise is pre- 
vented by choice, imply that it is an easy matter for man to 
repent and turn to God, in and of himself; for everything 
which is possible as a matter of duty is not therefore easy. I 
agree therefore with Turretin, " that man, laboring under such 
an inability, is falsely said to be able, if he wishes," — im- 
plying that a sinner's wishes may change a heart fully set on 
evil. "For though the phrase may to some extent be tolerated, 
understood concerning the natural power of willing, which, in 
whatever condition we may be, is never taken away from us, 
yet it cannot be admitted when we speak of the moral dispo- 
sition of the will to good, not only to willing, but to willing 
rightly." For, though in respect tb the possibility and cor- 
responding obligation there can be no excuse, nevertheless, in 
respect to the difficulty, nothing which the mind can lawfully 
be commanded to do can be more difficult. It is difficult to 
resist the original bias of the mind to actual sin ; difficult to 
relinquish the chief good located on earth, and set our affec- 
tions on things above ; and difficult to reverse the long-accu- 
mulating tendency of the habitual indulgence of our evil way. 
The Bible, therefore, represents it as, though a reasonable, yet 
a difficult thing for a lost sinner to save himself; so difficult 
that none do it, and that God in doing it makes glorious dis- 
plays both of power and grace, and every sinner and every 
saint, in working out his salvation, finds the scriptural repre- 
sentation true. The inattentive find it difficult to resolve 
upon immediate attention, and difficult ta fix their attention 
when they have done it. The stupid find it difficult to awaken 
themselves to feel and realize anything : and the awakened 
find it difficult to see and feel their sins, and the great evil of 



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293 



sin ; and, when convinced of sin, difficult to repent and come 
to Christ. And when the sinner is converted, it is so difficult 
to maintain a spiritual frame and holy resolutions, and watch- 
fulness and prayer and perseverance, that, for all that is 
past, and all that is to come, he says, "By the grace of God, 
I am what I am." 

The terms of the Confession preclude the interpretation of 
a natural impossibility as their only meaning, and cannot be 
so interpreted without making the Confession contradict itself. 

According to a well-established rule of interpretation, no 
instrument is to be so explained as to make it contradict itself 
without necessity, and when it is just as easy to harmonize all 
its parts by adopting a different interpretation. Now, if I 
have not proved that the Confession, as I interpret it, is 
sustained by other collateral arguments, in addition to that 
which I have drawn from the Bible, then I shall despair of 
ever successfully expounding a document in the world. I never 
have seen so much light thrown on any one point of expo- 
sition before. Does not the Confession speak of an inability 
other than a natural one ? Does it not teach expressly £ ' the 
natural liberty of the will ' ' in fallen man to choose good or 
evil, uncoerced by fate or necessity ? And, after all, is it a 
natural liberty that means nothing, and can do nothing? 
Does "'inability of will ' ' mean a natural impossibility of 
exercising that "natural liberty of the will" in the choice of 
good ; and that it is coerced by a natural necessity to the 
preference of evil? Does the Confession contradict itself? 
We are not at liberty, then, to make it in one set of terms 
deny ,an ability which it has asserted in another. And when 
it declares in appropriate phraseology the natural liberty of 
the will, it cannot mean to contradict, in its account of moral 
impotency, what it had before asserted with respect to its abil- 

vol. in. 25* 



294 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



ity to choose, as opposed to fate. I may be able in one sense, 
and unable in another. The Confession, in fact, interprets 
itself. (And this, I suppose, is what Dr. Wilson means 
when he says we must receive the language of the Confession 
without any explanation.) I agree with him, that on many 
points it needs no explanation. It guards against its ovvn 
perversion, and its language is such as I should think it 
almost impossible to misunderstand. 

Let us see what is the language which it holds in chap. VI. 
sec. 4 : 

From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, dis- 
abled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do 
proceed all actual transgressions. 

Here is active aversion, not fatal necessity. The man is 
indisposed ; he is disabled by being indisposed. But it has 
been said that if a man needs help it must be a natural 
inability under which he lies. This I deny. A man who 
lies under a moral inability needs aid as really as if he were 
naturally unable ; and the aid he needs is such as God alone 
can bring him. What Christian does not pray that God 
would help him ? But does he mean that he has no strength 
of any sort? Not at all. He is afraid to trust his own 
heart. He prays for moral aid, for moral ability, for strength 
of purpose. Surely, we are all agreed in this. We believe 
alike, for we pray alike.. New School and Old School all 
confess, when they get before God, their impotency of will to 
good, and pray for help to will and to do. I have put off my 
coat, — how shall I put it on ? We feel this impotency ; and 
what we feel God sees; and that which he sees he has 
testified. 

Chapter ix. on Free Will : 



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205 



Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to 
any spiritual good accompanying salvation ; so as a natural man, being 
altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own 
strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. 

When it says that man has lost all ability of will, it does 
not mean that he has lost all free agency. It does not mean, . 
that he is not able as a free agent, and bound to do that 
which is right, but that he has lost all will to do it. My 
soul ! do I not believe this ? Did I not feel it when God 
convinced me of sin 1 Full well did I feel it, Did I not fall 
at the footstool and tell the Lord that I was o- ne. that I was 
ruined and helpless, and never should come back to him, 
unless lie put forth his hand to deliver me ? If I ever 
preached any truth to dying men with all my heart and with 
all my soul, it is the truth of man's total depravity and 
inability: that his condition is desperate, and never will he 
turn and live unless God shall look clown from heaven and 
have mercy upon him. This is my doctrine ; and it is the 
doctrine of the Confession, which says, we are averse from all 
good. This language suits me. There is no catch in this, 
no quibble ; I mean what I say ; I fully and heartily believe 
that man is utterly averse to all good ; that he is dead ; dead 
in law and dead in sin, — under the curse of God, and so will 
ever remain, until God quickens him by his Spirit and grace. 

But let us see what the Confession says in sec, xv. chap. 9 : 

When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, 
he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone 
enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good ; yet so 
as that by reason of his remaining corruption he doth not perfectly nor 
only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. 

11 Enable " here does not imply that there is any natural 
inability. It means, inclines him to will. The Confession is 



296 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



orthodox ; it says that no mere man is able, without divine 
aid, to keep God's commandments. That is my faith. I 
admit, however, that this was the spot at which I once stum- 
bled, Avhen, as I said, I was unable fully to embrace the Con- 
fession of Faith. I saw a difficulty here. I believed the 
Confession to mean just as Dr. Wilson now insists that it 
does mean ; and in that sense I never could receive it. But 
on reflection, and with those collateral lights which I have 
mentioned, I now understand it to speak the very truth, and 
I embrace it accordingly. I believe in the moral inability 
which it here declares ; and I believe that moral inability to 
obey the law perfectly will continue until the Christian 
reaches his home in heaven. 

But now let us hear what the Confession says upon 
effectual calling. I quote from chap. x. sec. 1 ! 

All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is 
pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by his Word 
and Spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, 
to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ ; enlightening their minds spiritu- 
ally and savingly to understand the things of God ; taking away their 
heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh ; renewing their 
wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good ; 
and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ ; yet so as they come most 
freely, being made willing by his grace. 

This enlightening I hold to be a divine illumination, and 
such as the Spirit of God alone can give. The phrase " heart 
of stone," which is employed in one of the texts cited as 
proof, is a metaphor; and so is the " heart of flesh; J; and 
this, I believe, is the only passage in the whole Bible where 
the term " flesh J? is employed to signify anything good. A 
heart of flesh manifestly means tenderness, susceptibility, — 
in other words, a willing heart. Renewing the "will," that 



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is. turning the will into a new direction. It is God who turns 
it. The sinner left to himself never will turn. But in con- 
version God does not make a free agent. He turns a free 
agent. I am perfectly aware that some very good men sup- 
pose and assert that the men of the new school (though that, 
by the by. is one of the most undefined of all designations ; 
the term is like fog. — it has no substance and no definite limits, 
but floats about in a sort of palpable obscure) hold to self- 
regeneration, and that the influence of the Holy Spirit is not 
necessary in turning a sinner from darkness to light, No 
man ever heard me teach such a doctrine. I have taught 
directly the reverse, and have put the doctrine of man's abso- 
lute dependence into as strong terms as I knew how to 
employ. If there are any stronger. I shall be glad to get 
hold of them. All who are in the habit of hearing me know 
perfectly that the total depravity of man, and his dependence 
on the power and help of the Spirit of God. has been the great 
subject of all my preaching ; and. as I well know, has been, 
under God. the power of my preaching. I think, and always 
have thought, that the display of divine Omnipotence in con- 
verting-rebel minds is greater by far than any exhibition of it 
which ever has been made in the material world. And for an 
obvious reason. — because mind has more power of resistance 
than matter. Some men seem to think, that if God does a 
thing by instrumentality; no opportunity is left for God to 
show his own great power. I think far otherwise. To me 
the truth seems weak enough in itself to leave ample space for 
the display of Omnipotence in making it effectual. I think 
that the act of God in regeneration is the most stupendous 
manifestation of omnipotent energy that has ever been made 
by the Almighty. jSor do I ever expect to see anything in 
God"s works that will rival the solemn majesty of that great- 



298 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



est of all his operations, which, silent as the spheres, moves 
on in its resistless strength, making the hearts of rebels yield 
before it. 

The next point in the confirmation of my exposition of the 
doctrine of the Confession, touching the moral impotency of 
man, is to show that what it affirms on that subject has been 
the doctrine of the Church of God in all ages. And I shall 
now attempt to show that the fathers, while they held free 
will, in opposition to necessity and blind fate, nevertheless 
taught the moral inability of man, and his dependence on the 
Holy Spirit, just as I teach it. The first authority I shall 
produce on this point is that of Clement of Alexandria : 

Since some men are without faith, and others contentious, all do not 
obtain the perfection of good. Nor is it •possible to obtain it without our 
own exertion. The whole, however, does not depend upon our own will ; 
for instance, our future destiny ; for we are saved by grace, — not, indeed, 
without good works. — ScoWs Tomline, vol. it. p. 56. 

Clement teaches, in this passage, man's natural ability 
and his moral inability, with equal clearness. 

Origen. — The virtue of a rational creature is mixed, arising from his 
own free will, and the divine power conspiring with him who chooses that 
which is good. But there is need of our own free will, and of divine coop- 
eration, which does not depend upon our will, not only to become good and 
virtuous, but also after we become so, that we may persevere in virtue. — 
p. 82. 

I quoted him before, and showed that he was strong on the 
doctrine of free will, as opposed to fate. What I have now 
quoted may be considered as a good commentary upon the 
text, " It is God that wbrketh in you both to will and to do 
of his good pleasure." 

Gregory Nazianzen. — A right will stands in need of assistance from 



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God ; or rather the very desire of what is right is something divine, and 
the gift of the mercy of God. For we have need both of power over our- 
selves and of salvation from- God. Therefore, says he, it is not of him 
that willeth, — that is, not of him only that willeth, — nor only of him that 
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Since the will itself is from 
God, he with reason attributes everything to God. However much you 
run, however much you contend, you stand in need of him who gives the 
crown. 

Gregory says that God is the author of faith — that he is 
the beginning of good in the soul ; yet he is equally explicit 
on the doctrine of free will as opposed to fatalism. He holds 
that man has need of all that free agency can do. and all that 
grace performs beside. 

Jerome. — For the freedom of the will is so to be reserved that the 
grace of the giver may excel in all things, according to the saying of the 
prophet, Except the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build 
it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It 
is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that show- 
eth mercy. — p. 146. 

He declares, then, thai though man is a free agent, yet 
regeneration is not the effect alone of his agency, but also of 
God's free grace ; as the preservation of a city is not the 
result of the watchman's care alone, but of God's unsleeping 
providence. Unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman 
waketh but in vain. 

Theodoret. — Neither the grace of the Spirit is sufficient for those who 
bave unwillingness ; nor, on the other hand, can willingness, without 
this grace, collect the riches of virtue. — p. 290. 

Here we see, that while the grace of the Spirit does not 
supersede the necessity of earnest attention and striving on 
the part of man, yet that no strivings of man will ever issue 
in a saving result, without Almighty grace. And grace is 



300 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



not to be expected while, a man wilfully indulges in sloth and 
sleep, and puts forth no effort for his own deliverance. 

But, before adducing quotations further, I would remark : 

1. That every one of these confessions recognizes the lib- 
erty of the will, as free from coercion. 

2. They all uniformly ascribe its perverse action to the 
effect of the fall, in biasing, yet not in coercing, the will. 

3. They all teach expressly that the bondage is the influ- 
ence of this evil bias, and not a natural necessity of sinning ; 
and, taken together, they make out a clear and consistent 
account of the natural ability of man as a free agent, and of 
his moral inability as a sinner, by reason of the bias of 
his will, as occasioned by the fall. If you shut your eyes 
and try their meaning only* by yQur ear, you will hear it 
abundantly asserted that man hath no liberty at all to desire 
good, and can of himself do nothing; lout if you compare 
their own language with itself, you will perceive that they 
insist on the natural liberty of the will, which means natural 
ability, and teach only the impotence which results from the 
will itself, as biased and perverted by the fall, and that the 
distinction of man's natural ability as a free agent, and his 
impotency through the perversity of his will, runs through 
all the creeds, and is as plainly recognized in them as it is in 
our own Confession. It is this habit of interpreting by sound 
which demands a running exposition, or I should need to say 
nothing in exposition of the quotations from the former of 
the creeds. 

HARMONY OF THE PROTESTANT CONFESSIONS. 

The doctrines of the early Reformers in Europe were misun- 
derstood by the Catholics, against whom they contended, who 
maintained that they were all a set of schismatics ; that they 



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301 



were perpetually jangling among each other, so that no two 
of them could agree : and on this alleged fact they strength- 
ened .the great argument of their church as to the necessity 
of having some head on earth to the visible church, whose 
decisions might settle controversies, and give uniformity to the 
faith. To meet this argument and repel it. the Reformers 
got up this book, which is entitled "The Harmony of the 
Confessions. " the design of which was to show, bv collating 
the Confessions of different evangelical churches, that the 
representation of their enemies was false, and that in all 
fundamental points of faith they were fully agreed. 

From this book I am about to show what the Protestant 
churches, just come out of the fiery furnace of papal persecu- 
tion, held on the subject of the moral inability of man. I 
have already shown what was the opinion of the fathers. I 
shall now show that of the Reformers. And I begin with 
the Confession of Helvetia : 

Coxfessiox of Helvetia. — And we take sin to be that natural corrup- 
tion of man, derived or spread from those our first parents unto us all, 
through which we. "being drowned in evil concupiscences, and dean 
turned away all from God, but prone to all evil, full of wickedness, dis- 
trust, contempt, and hatred of God, can do no good to ourselves, — no. 
not so much as think of any. — p. 58. 

Here we see that man's inability does not consist in any 
want of understanding or conscience, or any other attribute 
or power of a free agent, but that it is the effect of that which 
is moral and voluntary : that it arises from the evil concupis- 
cence of a corrupt nature, the wilful unbelief of a wicked 
heart. Men cannot do what is good. Why 1 Because they 
have a moral inability to do it. Who can bring a clean 
thing out of an unclean ? Again : 

vol. in 26 



302 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



We are to consider what man was after his fall. His understanding, 
indeed, was not taken from him ; neither was he deprived of will, and alto- 
gether changed into a stone or stock. Nevertheless, these things are so 
altered in man, that they are not able to do now that which they could do 
before his fall. For his understanding is darkened, and his will, which 
before was free, is now becoming a servile will : for it serveth sin, not 
nilling, but willing ; for it is called a will and not a nilling. Therefore, 
as touching evil or sin, man does evil, not compelled either by God or the 
devil, but of his own accord ; and in this respect he hath a most free will. 
— p. 60. 

The fall is here said not to have deprived man of free 
agency, not to have turned him into a stock or a stone ; but 
that his free agency, as it did not suffice to keep him from 
sinning, does not suffice to raise him from the ruins of the 
fall. Again, let us listen to the same Confession : 

The regenerate, in the choice and working of that which is good, do not 
only work passively, but actively. For they are moved of God, that them- 
selves may do that which they do. And Augustine doth truly allege that 
saying, that God is said to be our helper. For no man can be helped, 
but he that doth somewhat. The Manichees did bereave man of all action, 
and made him like a stone and a block. — p. 62. - 

Here we find that no man is helped by grace as a mere 
passive, impotent machine ; that he acts in working out his 
salvation ; and that God helps him as a free agent, and not 
as a mass of lead. A piece of lead cannot be helped to rise. 
It may be lifted ; but it cannot be helped. And for the 
simple reason, that it hath no agency of its own to be helped. 

The French Confession. — Also, though he be endued with will, whereby 
he is moved to this or that, yet insomuch as that is altogether captivated 
under sin, it hath no liberty at all to desire good, as of itself, but such as 
it hath received by grace and of the gift of God. We believe that all the 
offspring of Adam is infected with this contagion, which we call original 
sin, that is, a stain spreading itself by propagation, and not by imitation 
only, as the Pelagians taught, all whose errors we do detest. Neither do 



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803 



we think it necessary to search how this sin may be derived from one unto 
another. For it is sufficient that those things which God gave unto Adam 
were not given to him alone, but to all his posterity ; and therefore, we in 
his person being deprived of all those good gifts, are fallen into all this 
misery and curse. — pp. 68, 89. 

This Confession begins with the natural liberty of will to 
choose this way or that, and asserts only its moral impotence, 
as swayed by this bias of our constitution as affected by the 
fall. 

Confession of Belgia. — Therefore whatever things are taught, as 
touching man's freewill [that is, unbiased will], we do worthily reject 
them, seeing that man is the servant of sin, neither can he do anything 
of himself , but as it is given him from heaven ; for who is so bold as to 
brag that he is able to perform whatever he listeth, when, as Christ himself 
saith, "Ab man can conle unto me except my Father which hath sent me 
do draw him "I 

From the context of this verse, and the Catecnism, it appears 
that this drawing is accomplished by divine teaching, the read- 
ing and preaching of the Word, made effectual by his Spirit. 

The Augsbeiigh Confession. — And this corruption of man's nature 
comprehendeth both the defect of original justice, integrity or obedience, 
and also concupiscence. This defect is horrible blindness and disobedience, 
that is, to wit, to want that light and knowledge of God, which should 
have been in our nature, being perfect; and to want that uprightness, that 
is, that perpetual obedience, that true, pure, and chief love of God, and 
those other gifts of perfect nature. — p. 71. 

We have seen that Luther, the author of this Confession, 
teaches the natural ability of man as a free agent, — that all 
actual sin is voluntary, and every term employed here 
implies a moral, not a natural defect, the want of holiness, 
and the power of evil desire. 

All these witnesses of the truth hold to the freedom of the 
wiU as opposed to coercion or necessity, but deny its right 



304 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY, 



inclination ; and thus, while they justify God's requirements, 
they throw the sinner at the feet of sovereign grace. There 
he lies dead, hopelessly dead, — not in body, not in natural 
power, but dead in sins, dead morally, dead in hatred to 
God, dead in unbelief, dead in wilful and obstinate disobedi- 
ence. And this distinction, once rightly apprehended and 
firmly fixed in the mind, is equal to twenty thousand candles 
lighted up and carried through the Bible. 

The demand, however, is often made, What difference 
does it make whether the inability of the sinner is natural or 
moral, since the certainty of his destruction without the Holy 
Ghost is just as great in one case as the other ? and of what 
consequence is an ability never exerted, and a power that is 
never employed ? 

It might as well be said that muscular power unexerted is 
as if it were not ; that intellect perverted is the same as 
idiocy, and conscience seared is the same as if none had been 
given ; that bread rejected to starvation is the same as inevi- 
table famine, — as to say, that the voluntary perversion of all 
the competent powers of free agency is the same thing as their 
non-existence. 

Does it amount to the same thing, whether a man cannot 
be temperate, or can be and will not? cannot be honest, 
or can be and will not? A man as a free agent may, 
indeed, make his own destruction as certain as if he 
could not help it. But does it make no difference, as to 
his character and desert, whether he perishes from the 
natural impossibility of being saved, or from a voluntary 
obstinacy in rejecting salvation ? And does it amount to the 
same thing, in respect to the character of God and the equity 
of his government, whether sinners fall under the operation 
of its penalties from a natural impossibility of laying hold on 



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305 



the provision for escaping them by a timely repentance, or by 
a voluntary obstinacy in despising the riches of his goodness 7 
Provided a man, as a matter of certainty, will die at a given 
time, does it amount to the same thing whether he was 
killed unavoidably or committed suicide? was thrust off a 
precipice against his will, or threw himself off? was poisoned 
unwittingly, or purposely poisoned himself? was assassinated 
by the dagger of another, or thrust a dagger into his own 
bosom ? 

The difference between ability and inability, in the subject, 
is the difference between the natural and moral government 
of God : in one of which his power and wisdom and good- 
ness are displayed in the superintendence of animals and 
instincts, — in the other, in the administration of law, and the 
government of the immortal mind, — in which his justice, and 
the richness of his goodness, and the exceeding greatness of 
his mercy, are to shine forever. But does it make no differ- 
ence whether his justice is illustrated in punishing the 
impotent, or the unwilling 1 and his mercy in forgiving the 
non-performance of impossibilities, or the wilful disobedience 
of reasonable requirements 'J It makes the difference between 
fatalism and free agency, — confounding the pretension of the 
atheist to a temporary animalism, and compelling him to 
tremble under the responsibilities of an everlasting accounta- 
bility, guilt and punishment. 

It stops the pestilent breath of sceptics and cavillers, by 
which thousands of youthful minds are perverted, reasoning 
minds perplexed, pious minds distressed, and dissolute minds 
comforted with the hope of impunity in sin, because God is 
just and sin is unavoidable. 

It takes away one of the most prevalent temptations to the 
infidelity and atheism of the present day. In reading the 

vol. in. 26* 



306 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

works of atheists and infidels, and in attending to the objec- 
tions of perverted minds, the exciting and exasperating cause 
seems to be, the supposition of accountability, associated with 
a constitutional, involuntary, unavoidable impotency. It is 
the belief that the Bible and the Calvinistic Confessions attach 
accountability and punishment to a natural impotency which 
provokes and sustains three-fourths of the atheism and infidel- 
ity of our nation. They would admit the equity of a govern- 
ment requiring according to what a man hath, but are 
provoked and enraged at the supposed injustice of punish- 
ment unconnected with the possibility of obedience in the 
subject; and understanding and being assured by masters in 
Israel that the Bible and our Confession teach this, they turn 
and rend the Bible. The distinction between natural and 
moral ability counteracts the Antinomian perversions of the 
Calvinistic system. Through all periods of the Church since 
the Reformation, there have been Antinomian Calvinists, and 
eras of outbreaking Antinomian ultraism ; and it has arisen 
from giving to the decrees of God and their execution the 
force of irresistible causes, and to man the action of a passive 
machine ; and though in some it has stopped in the frozen 
regions of intellectual formality and presumptuous reliance on 
God's efficiency without human instrumentality, in the less 
intellectual and more heated and fanatical it has degenerated 
not unfrequently into the most reckless licentiousness. So 
the same opinions operated among the Jews, as we learn by 
the terrible interrogations of the prophet, — u Will ye lie, and 
steal, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn 
incense unto Baal, and come into this house which is called 
by my name, and say we are delivered to do all these abomi- 
nations? We have no power over ourselves. We do but 
obey the irresistible laws of our nature. We are delivered 



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307 



by the constitution God 1ms given us, to do all these 
things." The only difference between these ancient and 
modern licentious Antinomians is. that the ancient denied 
accountability entirely, while the latter attach it to fatality, 
and bring in the grace of God to deliver from a natural 
impotency. All these obliquities of abused Calvinism have 
been pushed out, as I believe, by the system of a supposed 
fatality of will to evil. 

The one is the occasion of great perplexity and suffering to 
the pious, and not unfrequently to Christian ministers. They 
submit to it as very right because God does it. But it is 
a dark and painful subject. — they are embarrassed with it in 
their preaching, and still more embarrassed in their attempts 
to meet and answer the objections it creates, and at times are 
excruciated with its bearings on their common sense and feel- 
ings. 

These different theories manifest their different results in 
preaching. The one tends to the earnest inculcation of 
immediate spiritual obedience, after the example of prophets, 
apostles, and the whole Bible. The other, to the substitution 
of unregenerate prayers and strivings, with promises of 
gracious aid : instead of commanding and entreating all mem 
everywhere to repent and fly to the Saviour, by the wrath of 
God abiding on them, and the terrors of the Lord coming on 
them. 

The different effects of our Confession, when expounded, as 
teaching a real free agency or a real fatality, cannot be con- 
cealed or denied. By very large portions of the community 
the construction of natural inability in our Creed is supposed 
to teach fatality, associated with accountability, environing 
our Church with the most rancorous hostility and immovable 
prejudice, and raising up between ourselves and other denomi- 



308 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



nations an impassable barrier, and giving them motive an} 
opportunity to impede and annoy ns. The most successful 
means employed against our Church, in many places, hav* 
been the printing and circulation of our Confession as a text- 
book for comment. They do, indeed, misunderstand anc 
misinterpret its meaning ; but perhaps honestly, inasmuch a& 
they are sustained by the exposition of some of the ministers 
of our own Church, — and should the highest judicature of our 
Church pronounce the exposition correct, it would no doubt* 
greatly facilitate their labor. 

In addition to the Christian fathers and the Protestant Com 
fessions, on the subject of moral inability, I refer to every one 
of the authorities I have quoted, — to Luther, Calvin, Tur- 
retin, Witherspoon, Edwards, Bellamy, Hopkins, D wight, 
Spring (father and son), Wilson.. of Philadelphia, Woods, 
Tyler and Dr. Matthews, — as teaching the moral inability of 
man as consisting in an uncoerced voluntary aversion to 
spiritual obedience, not merely in consecutive volition, but in 
a permanent character, which is voluntary and culpable, 
because, as Turretin says, founded in a habit of corrupt 
•will." I close the quotations with Dr. Greene's account of 
moral inability. He says : 

I conclude the present lecture -with a quotation from Dr. Witherspoon, 
in which my own views of the topic before us are correctly expressed, — 
4 ' As to the inability of man to recover himself by his own power, though I 
would never attempt to establish a metaphysical system of necessity, of 
which infidels avail themselves in opposition to all religion, nor presume to 
explain the influence of the Creator on the creature, yet nothing is more 
plain from Scripture, or better supported by daily experience, than that 
man by nature is, in fact, incapable of recovery, without the power of God 
specially interposed. I will not call it a necessity arising from the irresist- 
ible laws of nature. I see it is not a necessity of the same kind as con- 
straint ; but I see it an impossibility such as the sinner never does over- 
come." — Christ Advocate, 1881 ; p. 349, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



309 



If there be any doubt of Dr. "Witherspoon's and Dr. 
Greene's meaning, the following exposition of Witherspoon 
himself may throw some light on the subject. 

In this passage Yfitherspoon. speaking the approved senti- 
ments of Dr. Greene, disclaims the infidel system of natural 
necessity, asserts an incapacity in man to recover himself to 
holiness without the power of God, — not, however, arising 
from the irresistible laws of nature, not a necessity of the 
same kind as constraint, but such an impossibility as the 
sinner never does overcome. This is correct, and is a good 
statement of natural ability and moral inability. 

Since mention has been made of perfect conformity to the will of God, or 
perfect obedience to his law, as the duty of man, which is indeed the found- 
ation of this whole doctrine, I think it necessary to observe, that some 
deny this to be properly required of man, as his duty in the present fallen 
state, because he is not able to perform it. But such do not seem to attend 
either to the meaning of perfect obedience or to the nature or cause of this 
inability. Perfect obedience is obedience by any creature to the utmost 
extent of his natural powers. Even in a state of innocence, the holy dis- 
positions of Adam would not have been equal in strength and activity to 
those of creatures of a higher rank ; but surely to love God, who is infi- 
nitely amiable, with all the heart, and above all to consecrate all his 
powers and faculties, without exception and without intermission, to God's 
service, must be undeniably the duty of every intelligent creature. And 
what sort of inability are we under to pay this ? Our natural faculties are 
surely as fit for the service of God as for any baser purpose ; the ina- 
bility IS ONLY MORAL, AND LIES WHOLLY IN THE AVERSION OF OUR HEARTS 

from such employment. Does this, then, take away the guilt? Must 
God relax his law because we are not willing to obey it ? Consult even 
modern philosophers, and such of them as allow there is any such thing 
as vice will tell you that it lies in evil or misplaced affections. Will, then, 
that which is ill in itself excuse its fruits from any degree of guilt or blame ? 
The truth is, notwithstanding the loud charge of licentiousness upon the 
truth of the Gospel, there is no other system, that ever I perused, which 
preserves the obligations of the law of God in its strength ; the most part 
of them, when thoroughly examined, just amount to this, that men are 



310 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



"bound, and that it is right and meet and fit that they should be as good 
and as holy as they themselves incline. — Wither spoon, vol. i. p. 45. 

This is all which any one, from Justin Martyr to this day, 
has taught 5 concerning man's natural ability, namely, that he 
is able to obey, in respect to any hindrance arising from*the 
irresistible laws of nature, including necessity of sinning of the 
same kind as constraint. Yet nothing is better supportec 
from Scripture than that man by nature is in fact incapable 
of recovery without the power of God specially interposed, 
though not 1 c an impossibility such as the sinner cannot, but 
such as he never does overcome ;" for, as Howe says, "not- 
withstanding the soul's capabilities, its moral incapacity — I 
mean its wicked aversation from God — is such as none but 
God himself can overcome." Now, if all these writers, 
including Dr. Greene, " disclaim," as he does, any metaphys- 
ical system of necessity of which infidels avail themselves in 
opposition to all religion, — any necessity of persisting in 
actual sin, arising from the irresistible laws of nature, — anc 
only insist that by the fall such an aversation of man's will 
from God has been occasioned as constitutes such an impos- 
sibility as the sinner never does overcome, I think it must be 
admitted that the whole Orthodox Church have been and are 
singularly united in the doctrine of man's natural ability of 
uncoerced will, and in his moral impotency by reason of a 
biased and perverted will. 

I subjoin a few examples of natural and moral inability, as 
the terms are familiarly employed in the Bible : 

Natural Inability. — "Thou canst not see my face and 
live." Moses desired the full-orbed vision of the glory of 
God ; but was answered that it would destroy his life, — his 
natural powers could not sustain the overpowering manifesta- 



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311 



tion. David said of his child, after his death. " Can I bring 
him back again? " and Solomon, " Can a man take fire in his 
bosom, and his clothes not be burned? " And God demands, 
" Can any hide himself that I shall not see him?" "The 
Chaldeans answered. There is not a man upon the earth that 
can show the king's matter — tell his dream and its interpreta- 
tion." " They which would pass from hence to you cannot ■ 
neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." 
These are evidently specimens of natural inability, which no 
willingness or effort on the part of the agent could surmount. 

Let us now look at the same terms as implying inability 
from disinclination or contrary choice, — "aversation of will." 

Moral Inability. — " With God all things are possible ;" 
that is, his natural power is equal to any act which is not in 
its own nature an imj30ssibilitj. " God who cannot lie," — 
" by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God 
to lie." Is God's omnipotence so limited that for want of 
power he could not utter falsehood ? Is it not the infinite 
aversion of his holiness which constitutes the inability? 
" The strength of Israel will not lie. Your new moons, and 
Sabbaths, and calling of assemblies, I CANNOT away with; it 
is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." _ The cannot is ex- 
plained to mean his aversion to hypocrisy in worship ; there- 
fore it follows, ".when ye make many prayers I ivill not 
hear." 

It is said of our Saviour, that " he must needs go through 
Samaria." Was he compelled to go through Samaria; or 
did he simply, for sufficient reasons, choose to go that w r ay ? 

"He could not do mighty works there because of their un- 
belief." Did the unbelief of man overpower divine omnipo- 
tence, so that Christ had no ability to work miracles ; or did 
it furnish to his divine wisdom such reasons against it as made 



312 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



him prefer not to do it, expressed by the phrase could not, 
that is. chose not to do it ? 

" Can the children of the bride-chamber fast while the 
bridegroom is with them?" Doubtless they possess the 
natural ability. But the meaning is, Will they choose to do 
it % Can they, — that is, will they ? 

u Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of ? " It was the 
cup of suffering and of ignominy ; and he meant not whether 
they could feel pain and persecution and shame (for he told 
them that they should), but whether they were willing, and 
believed that they should continue willing, to suffer with him. 
" Can ye," that is, are you and shall you be willing? 

" If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Did our 
Saviour doubt whether God had the power to deliver him 
instantly from suffering? He knew he could do it; and 
only, as man, was not certain whether the agony he had 
already suffered might suffice, or the expiation demanded 
more. The phrase, if it be possible, means therefore if it be 
wise and seem good in thy sight, — if thou art satisfied and 
willing, let this cup pass, &c. ; but if otherwise, not my taill, 
but thy will be clone. " Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make 
me clean;" that is, thou canst do it, if thou art willing, 
implying, as in the case before, that he could not cleanse him 
if unwilling, calling unwillingness inability. 

" This is a hard saying ; who can -hear it? " This means 
not that a sinner has no power to hear the humbling doctrine 
of total depravity ; but who, as we say, can bear it, — that is, 
be willing, be pleased with it? From that time -many of 
his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. It 
was those that could not hear such sayings. 

" Ye cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of 
devils." The natural ability of man qualifies him to sit at 



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313 



either table: but. while he prefers the table of Christ, he 
cannot — will not — prefer the table of devils. 

The carnal mind is enmity against God. not subject to 
the law of God. neither indeed can be." If this means a 
natural inability,, how does regeneration help the matter, as it 
includes the creation of no new natural powers or faculties 3 
But, if it means that the carnal mind is one which, by its 
friendship for the world, is at enmity with God. then it is 
plain that the mind which prefers the creature to God cannot 
at the same time prefer God to the creature, though the 
hindrance is not natural, but the inability of the will. — U 
moral inability. — a duty prevented by a contrary choice. 

i: And Joshua said, Te cannot serve the Lord, for he is a 
holy God." The people understood him to say that they 
had no moral ability, — no heart to serve him, — because they 
were so sinful. But they replied. "Xay, but we will serve 
the Lord," — we have the ability because we have the will. 

How can ye believe who receive honor one of another, 
and seek not the honor that cometh from God? " that is, how 
can you believe who prefer the praise of man more than the 
praise of God, — who voluntarily set at naught Jesus Christ ! 

: - The natural man cannot know the things of the kingdom 
of God ; " but why can he not, — what hinders ? 

Answer. — " If our Gospel be hid it is hid to them who 
are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the 
hearts of them that believe not." Xo man can come unto 
me except the Father draw him." that is, by his hearing and 
being taught of God ; making the reading, and especially the 
preaching of his Word, the means of his effectual calling by 
his Spirit. 

These examples, to which thousands might be added, decide 
that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, given by 
vol. EEL 27 



314 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



inspiration of God, do maintain the distinction between things 
whose existence is perverted for want of sufficient capacity in 
the agent, and things which lie within the limits of his capac- 
ity and are only prevented by his choice, — and that both 
are expressed by the terms cannot, impossible, unable, &c., — 
leaving it to the nature and connections of the subject to 
indicate the peculiar meaning, and never, except in theologi- 
cal controversy, or the cavillings of sinners, leading to any 
mistake. 

I have said that this use of the terms cannot, unable, &c, 
to indicate those things which men are able to perform, but 
do not choose to do, is not a phraseology peculiar to the 
Bible, but is a mode of speaking into which the universal 
mind of man, in all nations, ages and languages, has fallen, 
from the familiarity of the conversational and business dialect, 
up to the most labored efforts of argument and eloquence. 

I ask my neighbor who is on a sick bed, Are you able to 
walk ? and he replies, I am not. When restored to health, I 
inquire of him, Can you assist me in my business to-day ? and 
he replies, I cannot. I should be glad to oblige you, but 
my own business compels me to go another way. How often, 
when a man is provoked at the conduct of his neighbor, do 
we hear the indignant exclamation, — "It is too bad, — I 
cannot bear it ! ?J And how common is it to say of a man, 
strongly prejudiced by interest or passion, he cannot hear, 
cannot see, cannot understand ; and of the miser when the cry 
of the widow and fatherless assails him, he cannot give. Gold 
is his god, and his heart is made of stone. 

The following examples from Edwards, and Buck, and a 
few other writers of eminence, will suffice both to illustrate 
the nature of the distinction between natural and moral ina- 



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315 



bility, and the usus loquendi of theological, political and lit- 
erary authors : 

Edwards. — To give some instances of this moral inability : A woman of 
great honor and chastity may have a moral inability to prostitute herself 
to her slave. A child of great love and duty may be unable to be willing 
to kill his father. A drunkard, under such and such circumstances, may 
be unable to forbear taking of strong drink. A very malicious man may 
be unable to exert benevolent acts to an enemy, or to desire his prosperity; 
yea, some may be so under the power of a vile disposition that they may 
be unable to love those who are most worthy of their esteem and affection. 
A strong habit of virtue, and a great degree of holiness, may cause a moral 
inability to love wickedness in general, may render a man unable to take 
complacence in wicked persons- or things, or to choose a wicked life, and 
prefer it to a virtuous life. And, on the other hand, a great degree of 
habitual wickedness may lay a man under an inability to love and choose 
holiness, and render him utterly unable to love an infinitely holy being, or 
to choose and cleave to him as his chief good. 



Buck. 

Natural Inability. 

Cain could not have killed Abel, 
if Cain had been the weakest, and 
Abel aware of him. 

Jacob could not rejoice in Joseph's 
exaltation before he heard of it. 

The woman mentioned in 2d Kings 
6 : 29 could not kill her neighbor's 
son and eat him, when he was hid, 
and she could not find him. 

Hazael could not have smothered 
Benhadad, if he had not been suf- 
fered to enter his chamber. 



Moral Inability. 
Cain could not have killed Abel, 
if Cain feared God, and loved his 
brother. 

Potiphar's wife could not rejoice 
in it, if she continued under it. 

Had that woman been a very affec- 
tionate mother, she could not have 
killed her own son in a time of plenty, 
as she did in a time of famine. 

If a dutiful, affectionate son had 
been waiting on Benhadad, in Ha- 
zael's stead, he could not have 
smothered him, as Hazael did. 



There is hardly an author of repute, from the time of 
Alfred to the present day, — whether a poet, a historian, an 
essayist, or a metaphysician, — who does not afford abundant 



316 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



examples of such use of the word cannot, I select a few 
from known and classical authors : 

Loud Bacon. — A man's person hath many relations which he cannot 
put off. A man cannot speak to his wife but as a husband to his son, 
but as a father ; to his enemy, but upon terms. — p. 186. 

Dr. Johnson. — In apologizing for the omission of many 
business terms in his Dictionary, he says : 

I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's language, nor take a 
voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor visit warehouses 
of merchants and shops of artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools, and 
operations, of which no mention is made in books. 

Again, moral and natural inability are brought together in 
one sentence : 

There never can be wanting some who will consider that a whole life 
cannot be spent on syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would 
not be sufficient. 

Shakspeare, — who is as noted for using language as 
men in every situation use it, as he is for delineation of char- 
acter : 

Pray, can I not, 
Though inclination be as sharp as 'twill, 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent ; 
And, like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
And both neglect. * * * * 

But 0, what form of prayer 
Can serve my turn ? Forgive me my foul murder ! 
That cannot be ; since I am still possessed 
Of those effects for which I did the murder, — 
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 

Hamlet, Act in* Scene 3. 



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317 



Burke, — I cannot remove the eternal barriers of creation. 

This was a physical impossibility. But is the following, 
occurring just before in the same speech, physically impossi- 
ble ! 

I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of mj fellow- 
creatures, as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir 
Walter Raleigh) at the bar. — Speech on Conciliation with America. 

"Webster. — This court, then, does not admit the doctrine that a legis- 
lature can repeal statutes creating private corporations. If it cannot 
repeal them altogether, of course it cannot repeal any part of them, or 
impair them, or essentially alter them, without the consent of the corpo- 
rators. 

But if the court had chosen to be unjust, could they not 
do this 3 TVas it physically impossible ? 

So. in the same speech, he says, in still stronger language, 
"In the very nature of things, a charter cannot be forced 
upon anybody : no one can be compelled to accept a grant." 

But is it literally impossible for one to be compelled by 
suitable power ? 

So. a few lines after. — "It cannot be pretended that the 
legislature, as successor to the king in this part of his pre- 
rogative, has any power to revoke, vacate, or alter this 
charter.'' But if one chose to pretend this, could he not ! — 
Webster's Speech in case Dartmouth College v. William 
H. Woodward. 

Alexander Hamilton. — It cannot be affirmed that a duration of four 
years, or any other limited duration, would completely answer the end 
proposed. — Federalist, Xo. 61. 

Surely he knew that it could be affirmed, i'f any chose to. 

Judge Story. — Had the faculties of man been competent to the framing 
of a system of government which would leave nothing to implication, it 
cannot be doubted that the effort would have been made by the framers of 
our constitution. — Com. on Constitution (abridged), p. 147* 
VOL. III. 27* 



318 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



It certainly could not reasonably, but would it be out of 
the power of mind to do so ? 

But it is said, If men, as free agents, are in reality able to 
obey the Gospel, how does it happen that under such a press- 
ure of motives no one of the human race should ever have 
done it ? And suppose we could not tell, and should admit 
that it is wonderful, — as God does, — would it follow that the 
reason is the natural impossibility of evangelical obedience ? 
How could it be wonderful that men do not of themselves obey 
the Gospel, if the reason of it is that it is a natural impos- 
sibility ? Is it wonderful that men do not create worlds, or 
uphold or govern the universe? and why should the non-per- 
formance of one impossibility be more wonderful than another ? 
Can there be no uniformity of character without a coercive 
necessity producing it ? Is not God of one mind, immutable, 
yet free? Are not the angels free who kept their first 
A estate? And are not the fallen angels, though immutably 
wicked, as voluntary in their opposition to God as the holy 
angels are voluntary in their obedience ? As to the uniform 
disobedience of fallen man until renewed by the Holy Ghost, 
we have only to say it is a matter of fact, well authenticated, 
that free agents do so ; that it is a part of the terrific nature 
of sinful man to baffle all motives, and be voluntarily but 
unchangeably wicked, persevering in rebellion, - amid com- 
mands, prohibitions, promises and threatenings, and the en- 
treaties of the holy universe, and the weepings and wailings 
of the lost. 

The next topic in order is that of Original Sin. And, 
in my belief, there is no subject in theology on which it is 
more difficult to speak with clearness and accuracy than con- 
cerning the effects of the fall on the posterity of Adam, and 
the condition of the human mind before it arrives at the 



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319 



point of developing its intellectual and moral powers in actual 
sin. Nor is it wonderful, because neither intuition nor phi- 
losophy, nor personal communion with infant mind, makes us 
acquainted with its attributes. For this reason, when I have 
spoken on the subject, I have confined myself uniformly to 
the facts in the case revealed in the Bible, and discarded per- 
tinaciously all theorizing. 

What the precise errors are which I am supposed to hold, 
I do not know : but, from the evidence relied on, and the gen- 
eral course of the argument, it would seem that I am supposed 
to hold the Pelagian doctrine on the subject ; that I deny 
that Adam was the federal head and representative of his 
race : that the covenant was made not only with Adam, but 
also with his posterity ; that the guilt of his sin wa3 im- 
puted to them: that there is any such thing as native 
depravity : or that infants are depraved. That, on the con- 
trary, I hold and teach, that infants are innocent, and as pure 
as Adam before the fall ; and that each one stands or falls for 
himself, as he rises to personal accountability ■ and that there 
is no such thing as original sin, descending from Adam by 
ordinary generation : and that original sin is not sin in any 
sense deserving of God's wrath and curse. 

ZSow, every one of these assumed errors of my faith I 
deny to be my faith. They ascribe to me opinions which I 
have never held or taught : and, as I shall show, there is no 
evidence that I ever taught one of them. 

There is no more evidence of my holding or teaching the 
doctrines of Pelagius on original sin, than there is of my 
holding the doctrine of Mahomet, or the Brahmins, or the 
Pope. And, though I doubt not that my direct evidence will 
be satisfactory, I will not omit that which is collateral and 
circumstantial. My religious education was superintended by 



320 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



pious Calvinists of blessed memory ; and was as orthodox as 
the Assembly's Catechism, committed to memory , could make 
it. My convictions of sin were in accordance with my educa- 
tional belief, and were deep and distressing, to the cutting off 
of all self-righteous hope from native excellence, or acceptable 
obedience in any action, social, civil or religious, and laid me 
low in an agony of self-despair, at the footstool of mercy, as 
unholy, totally depraved, justly condemned, and hopeless of 
regeneration and pardon but through the infinite sovereign 
mercy of God, through the- merits of Christ. And the 
change which led me to hope, and has sustained me in my 
ministry, and holds up my hopes of heaven, was, I full well 
know, "not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will 
of the flesh, but of God; 3 ' so that, if I am a Pelagian 
now in my faith, few men can be more inexcusable in oblit- 
erating the teachings of a pious education, or the teachings 
of God's holy Spirit in my own distressing experience. But 
I have not gone back. I remember the horrid pit, and have 
also in fresh recollection the wormwood and the gall ; and it 
is knowing the terrors of the Lord, and the love of Christ in 
my deliverance from them, which, if I am not deceived, have 
sustained and animated me in the work of the ministry. My 
theological education was under Dwight; and the authors 
which contributed to form and settle my faith were Edwards, 
Bellamy, Witherspoon, Dwight, and Fuller. With such 
favorite authors for my guide, I have perceived in myself no 
retrocession from my early convictions. The doctrines which 
have constituted the body and power of my preaching, so far 
as it has had any, have been, — the doctrine of God's decrees, 
the fall, the native and total depravity of man, election, 
effectual calling, or regeneration by the special influence of 
the Holy Spirit, justification by the merits of Christ through 



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321 



faith, and the perseverance of the saints ; doctrines not com- 
monly, I believe, found in alliance with Pelagian notions of 
native excellence and regeneration by moral suasion ; and my 
preaching, if Pelagians or Unitarians have claimed me, has 
never seemed to satisfy them, or the results of it to corre- 
spond with what they claimed to be the proper fruits of 
correct preaching ; they have been the results of Calvinistic 
preaching, in convictions of sin and apparent conversions to 
Grod, such as Pelagians ridicule and denounce as fanaticism, 
instead of the fruits of the Spirit. 

I have never been ultra Calvinistic, pushing my opinions 
towards Antinomian fatality ; nor have I at all more leaned 
to~ the doctrine of Pelagian free will and human self-suffi- 
ciency ; and in doctrine I am what I ever have been, having 
gained only the more accurate and comprehensive knowledge 
which use and study afford, and the facilities of presenting to 
every man his portion in due season, as the result of experi- 
ence in the adaptation of particular truths to particular states 
of mind. All this, however, is nothing against positive evi- 
dence of defection. But no such evidence has been produced. 
The chief evidence relied on is contained in my sermon on 
the native character of man. But that sermon was not 
designed to teach, and does not teach professedly, the doctrine 
of original sin. It has no direct respect to that doctrine. 
There is not a word in the sermon designed to state, explain, 
prove, or apply, that doctrine. The subject of the sermon is 
the total depravity oe adult man, and affords not the 
least evidence of what my opinions are on the subject of 
original sin. By the laws of interpretation, therefore, you 
are not permitted to travel out of the record, and apply to 
infants and original sin the language I have held with express 
and exclusive reference to the total depravity of adult man. 



322 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



It was occasioned by local exigency in my congregation, — the 
restiveness of a man of talents and learning under the preach- 
ing of the doctrine of total depravity, especially in its denial 
of the native virtues and acceptable doings of unregenerate 
men. It was Pelagianism, in substance, that rose up against 
me; and the sermon was purposely constructed so as, by 
explaining and proving the doctrine of total depravity, to put 
it down. The correctness of this representation will be 
sustained by an analysis of the sermon. * 

ANALYSIS OF THE SERMON ON THE NATIVE CHARACTER 
OF MAN.^ 

Its title precludes any reference to original sin ; it is, 
The Native Character of Man ; meaning, of course, not his 
native constitution, but the character which all men first 
form who come up to personal action. Native, as applied to 
character, is sanctioned by correct theological use, and means 
the character which all men first sustain, in the exercise of 
their own powers, under the perverting influence of the fall. 

The text has exclusive regard to adults, to regenerated 
men : " Whosoever loveth is born of God." 

It is regarded in its exposition as holy love, — the fulfilling 
of the law, — the principle of evangelical obedience, — religion, 
— does not belong to men by nature, — is never a quality of 
his heart by natural birth, and is the result of a special divine 
interposition which makes him a child of God. Both the text 
and introduction, therefore, respect regeneration in adult man. 

It is the object of the sermon to prove that man is not ' 
religious by nature, — meaning by man the race; and by 
"not religious by nature," that there is nothing in the con- 
stitution of adult man of which religion is ever the result, 

* Vide page 53. 



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323 



without a change of heart by the special influence of the Holy 
Ghost. The proof in every particular respects, evidently and 
only, adult man and actual sin. 

Universal experience evinces that the supreme love of the 
world constitutes the first character of man. All men are 
conscious that they set their affections first supremely on the 
world, and not on God. Awakened sinners discover that 
they have no true love to God, and Christians can look back 
to the time when evidently they had none. 

The history of the world is inconsistent with the supposi- 
tion of native religion. Its idolatry, its animalism, gluttony, 
intemperance, and lust, — its wars, frauds, violence, and blood. 
Love to God and man in the hearts of all by nature could 
not have made such a history as that of our world has been. 

The Bible affords no testimony to the piety of man by nature, 
— says nothing good of the human heart, — not a syllable. 

It ascribes to the heart of man by nature a character 
inconsistent with religion, — evil only, deceitful, fully set on 
evil, desperately wicked, full of madness. 

The scriptural account of childhood shows that man is not 
born religious. Every imagination of the heart is evil from 
his youth, — the wicked are estranged from the womb, — no 
religion born with them. 

All the generic descriptions of the race are such as preclude 
religion as the native character of man. 

Man is the generic of the race. But what is man that he 
should be clean ? or the son of man, that he should be 
righteous ? 

The world is another generic term, characteristic of the 
race. But it is a world which hated Christ, and whose friend- 
ship is enmity with God. 

The flesh is another. But the carnal mind is enmity 
against God. 



324 



VIEWS OE THEOLOGY. 



The whole world is divided into classes, and all men are 
described as holy or unholy, righteous or wicked. But never 
as righteous first, but always as wicked first, and as becoming 
righteous by the power of the Spirit. 

It was while we were enemies that Christ died for us ; 
and it is only by being reconciled that we become religious. 

It is the direct testimony of the omniscient God, that all 
have gone out of the way, — become vile; none that do 
good, — no, not one. 

The alleged universal necessity of a change to qualify 
men for heaven is proof that they have no religion. 

The reversal of this argument shows its force. If the first 
accountable character of man is a religious character, 
this entire body of evidence must be^reversed. All men must 
be conscious of supreme love to God in early life, and con- 
viction of sin and a moral renovation must be confined to 
those who have lost their religion, while the great body of 
Christians must be supposed to be such without the conscious- 
ness of any change. At the same time, the history of the 
world must be found to be a history of the fruits of piety ; 
idolatry itself being only an aberration of religious affection in 
the fast friends of God, emulous to please their heavenly 
Father ! It should, moreover, be found written upon the 
unerring page, " Every imagination of man's heart is good 
from his youth. The children of men have not gone out of 
the way. There is none that doth not understand and seek 
God, and do good ; no, not one. The heart of the sons of 
men is full of goodness, out of which proceed holy thoughts, 
benevolent deeds, chastity, truth and reverence for God. 
What, therefore, is man, that he should be wicked ? or he 
that is born of a woman, that he should not be religious ? 
How lovely and pure is man, who drinketh in righteousness 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



825 



like water ! This is the approbation, that darkness is come 
into the world, and men have loved light more than darknes3 
because their deeds are good. The whole world lieth in 
rigJiteousness. He [Christ] was in the world, and the 
world knew him. righteous Father, the world hath known 
thee. The friendship of the world is friendship with God. 
If the world hath loved you. ye know that it loved me before 
it loved you. Ee ye. therefore, conformed to the world, 
and be ye not transformed by any renewing of your mind. 
My spirit shall always strive with man. because he is spirit. 
For that which is born of the flesh is spirit. Marvel not 
that I say unto you ye must not be born again. For the 
works of the flesh are love. joy. peace, faith : and the 
fruits of the Spirit are love, joy. peace, faith. In me, — that 
is. in my flesh, — dwelleth every good thing. Jesus Christ 
came to seek and to save those who were not lost ; and he 
died not for his enemies. — not the just for the unjust, but for 
his righteous friends. The Gospel demands of men no new 
character : and all the doctrines of the Bible imply the early 
and universal piety of the human family.'' 

All the inferences from the doctrine as thus proved refer 
to man as an adult subject of the government of God. 

1. This discussion discloses the nature of depravity in 
unrenewed man : it consists in the want of love to God, and 
loving the creature more than God : in covetousness, which 
is idolatry, having other gods before him. 

2. The depravity of adult man is voluntary, as opposed to 
a coercive necessity of sinful choice. 

3. It is positive. Not merely the want of love to God, 
but actual transgression against God. Active enmity. 

4. It is great, as committed against a being of infinite ex- 
cellence, — a violation of infinite obligation, — against the most 

vol. in. 28 



326 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

powerful motives in the most aggravating circumstances, and 
with unparalleled obstinacy of determination. 

5. The depravity of man implied in the absence of religion 
is entire, — fallen adult man is totally depraved. 

6. It illustrates the nature and necessity of regeneration, 
as being the commencement of holy love to God in the soul ; 
its absence, death in sin ; its presence, by the power of the 
Spirit, a resurrection from the dead. It is a change percep- 
tible by its effects, and instantaneous in its commencement. 
There is a moment when he who loved the world more than 
God gives it up, and gives his heart to God, — - a time when 
the metanoia comes to pass. 

This is my Pelagian sermon. A sermon on total adult 
depravity, and its nature as voluntary, consisting in enmity 
to God, selfishness, pride, covetousness, idolatry, impenitence, 
and unbelief. 

The only alleged evidence of its Pelagianism is contained 
in what is said about the voluntariness of actual sin in adult 
man, as opposed to a supposed created instinct, or the 
direct efficiency of God, producing actual sin by an irresist- 
ible and fatal necessity; but from the text, subject, argu- 
ment, and inferences of the discourse, it is undeniable that it 
has reference only to actual sin and total depravity, and has 
no direct reference to original sin at all. It was written in 
Connecticut, anterior to the controversies which now agitate 
the Church. It was demanded to encounter and resist the 
most specious Pelagian argument against the total depravity 
of man which I have ever seen. It was deduced from the 
various noble and amiable traits of human constitution and 
conduct which survive the fall, and are always urged as mat- 
ter-of-fact exceptions to the doctrine of total depravity : such 
as taste and admiration of moral fitness ; approbation of truth 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



327 



and justice ; constitutional kindness and sympathy and com- 
passion ; the natural affections, which unite the family in all 
their tenderness and power ; the amiable constitutional tem- 
peraments which survive the fall ; honor and honesty in deal- 
ings, and liberality as opposed to covetousness and miserly 
meanness ; correct morality, power of conscience, public spirit, 
patriotism, great usefulness, accompanied by a copious retinue 
of good works. The argument against total depravity was 
written, and read, and commented on with great ability, and 
in a manner which compelled me to provide the antidote. 
With an especial view, then, to meet and refute these Pela- 
gian matter-of-fact exceptions to the doctrine of total adult 
depravity, I constructed the sermon which is now adduced in 
evidence against me on the subject of original sin. I began 
with the position that unrenewed men have no true religion, 
because that was a point conceded ; and having established it, 
as I believed, I proceeded to draw the inferences which, as I 
supposed, cut up by the roots these Pelagian virtues as hav- 
ing any claim to be considered valid exceptions to the doc- 
trine of total depravity ; leaving in its full force the evidence 
that in adult man there dwelleth no good thing, and that 
every imagination of his heart is evil only continually. Now, 
that this sermon, written on purpose to put down the Pela- 
gian exceptions to total depravity, should be years after, in 
another and distant department of the Church, quoted and 
admitted as a proof of my Pelagianism, would be an anomaly 
of mental obliquity and injustice which I am sure cannot 
find a place in the judicatures of the Presbyterian Church. 
Even had it contained, in the ardor of argument, expressions 
not sufficiently guarded, and which by possibility might be 
interpreted to mean heresy, no court, in the unbiased exercise 
of Christian candor, would permit them to be turned aside 



328 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



from the main design and governing argument of the dis- 
course. Much less where, though it was not the object of the 
sermon to establish the doctrine of original sin, it does so by 
proving two of the fundamental doctrines always relied on by 
the Orthodox Church, and by Edwards in particular, to prove 
the doctrine of original sin ; I mean the doctrine of total 
depravity and the doctrine of regeneration. One of the main 
arguments of Edwards to prove original sin is the universal- 
ity and entireness of actual sin ; from which he infers that, 
anterior to actual agency, there is in all men, as a conse- 
quence of our federal alliance with Adam, some common 
cause, ground or reason, of universal and total actual deprav- 
ity, which he calls "the influence of a prevailing, effectual 
tendency in the nature of man ?? fo actual sin. And thus I 
prove the doctrine of original sin, — incidentally, indeed, but 
really, — by proving the actual, universal, total depravity of 
man. There must be, and there is, in man, something 
anterior to voluntary action, which is the ground and reason 
that the will of fallen man does from the beginning act 
wrong. To say that all men sin actually, and entirely, and 
universally, and forever, until renewed by the Holy Ghost, 
and that against the strongest possible motives, merely 
because they are free agents, and are able to do so, — and that 
there is in their nature, as affected by the fall, no cause or 
reason of the certainty, — is absurd. It is to ascribe the most 
stupendous concurrence of perverted action in all the adult 
millions of mankind to nothing. The thing to be accounted 
for is the phenomenon of an entire series of universal actual 
sin ; and to ascribe the universal and entire obliquity of the 
human will to the simple ability of choosing wrong, is to 
ascribe the moral obliquity of a lost world to nothing. 

This was the point of the controversy in Edwards on the 



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329 



Will, against the Arminian theory of self-determination. The 
free agency claimed by the Arminian was one which excluded 
not only force and absolute necessity of nature from deciding 
the will, but denied the existence of any internal constitu- 
tion or objective influence of motive , as connected with our 
constitutional susceptibilities, in securing the existence or 
determining the moral qualities of choice. 

Edwards affirmed that there must be, and is, anterior to the 
exercise of free agency, some constitution of the agent and 
relevancy of motive, as the ground and reason of the certainty 
of choice, though not a coercive cause ; and his antagonists 
deny that there is any cause, ground or reason of the cer- 
tainty of choice, holy or unholy, in or out of man, anterior to 
its existence — assuming the necessity of a perfect indifference 
of will in all cases immediately anterior to volition, and the 
actual uncertainty of choice, as affected by any cause or reason 
anterior to its existence; and the necessity to its freedom and 
accountability that in every case it should be the simple, 
uninfluenced energy of the mind itself. And what Edwards 
attempts to prove, and does prove, in his treatise on the Will 
and on original sin, is, that to choice of any kind there is in 
the agent some constitution which is the ground or reason 
that motives become, not, indeed, the coercive causes, but the 
certain occasions of volition; and that, in man, before the 
fall, there was a constitution which was the ground and 
reason of the unperverted exercise of his will and affections in 
loving and obeying God ; and that by the fall a change was 
effected in the nature of man anterior to voluntary action 
w^hich is the cause or reason of the universal certainty of the 
perversion of the will and affections of fallen man ; and that 
the antecedents of perfect actual holiness and entire actual 
sin are properly denominated, with reference to those certain 

vol. in. 28* 



330 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



results in action, a holy or an unholy nature : only guarding, 
as our Confession does, alike against the Antinoniian fatality 
of the will by force, and the Arminian self-determination, 
without any antecedent constitutional cause, ground or reason, 
within or without. 

These views, as held by Edwards, and corroborated by our 
own Confession and the standard writers of our Church, com- 
prehend the doctrine which I have always believed and 
preached ; and never have I knowingly and intentionally, at 
any time, expressed a sentiment, verbally or in writing, to the 
contrary. 

The falseness and folly of the common notion of the self- 
determination of the mind by its own energy of will, without 
any cause or occasion even, is sufficiently manifest, in its op- 
position to the possibility of moral government on the part of 
God, or the possibility of praise or blame on the part of man : 
for moral government is the government of a lawgiver, influ- 
encing the will and conduct of subjects by the influence of 
laws, rewards, punishments, and administration. But if 
nothing may approach the mind, in the form of influence, 
having any tendency to destroy the dignified indifference of 
the will, or secure the certainty or probability even of volition, 
then, though self-government might exist, the government of 
God could not ; and nothing .but the most perfect anarchy 
could exist as the accidental, uncaused, and unoccasioned 
action of millions of independent minds, acting without any 
cause, ground or reason. Indeed, it would render choice itself 
impossible, as it supposes a mind without susceptibility or 
desire of anything, or one thing more than another, — a con- 
dition of mind precluding the possibility of choice, which 
always implies excited desire, and a prospect of some gratifi- 
cation and without which man would be less capable of choice 



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331 



than a snail or an oyster : and even if he could choose with- 
out desire, reason or motive, the offspring of such a nonde- 
script mental anomaly would be no more praise or blame 
worthy than the motions of a pendulum or the tickings of a 
watch, — uncertain of being till they come into being, and 
coming without any cause, ground, or reason, — bubbles from 
the bottom of the muddy lake might as well be regarded as 
accountable and worthy of praise or blame, as the volition of 
men* 

I adopt, therefore, with approbation, the language of Pro- 
fessor Hodge, in his Commentary on Romans : 

Of all the facts ascertained by the history of the world, it would seem 
to be among the plainest that men are born destitute of a disposition to seek 
their chief good in God, and with a disposition to make self-gratification 
the great end of their being. Even reason, conscience, natural affection, 
are less universal characteristics of our fallen race. For there are idiots 
and moral monsters often to be met with ; but for a child of Adam, unin- 
fluenced by the special grace of God, to delight in his Maker, as the portion 
of his soul, from the first dawn of his moral being, is absolutely without 
example among all the thousands of millions of men who have inhabited 
our world. If experience can establish anything, it establishes the truth 
of the scriptural declaration, " that which is born of the flesh is flesh." It 
would seem no les3 plain that this cannot be the original and normal 
state of man, — that human nature is not now what it was when it pro- 
ceeded from the hand of God. Everything else which God has made 
answers the end of its being ; but human nature, since the fall, has 
uniformly worked badly ; in no one instance has it spontaneously turned 
to God as its chief good. It cannot be believed that God thus made 
man ; that there has been no perversion of his faculties, — no loss of some 
original and guiding disposition or tendency of his mind. It cannot be 
credited that men are now what Adam was, when he first opened his eyes 
on the wonders of creation and the glories of God. Reason, scripture and 
experience, therefore, all concur in support of the common doctrine of the 
Christian world, that the race fell in Adam, lost their original rectitude, 
and became prone to evil as the sparks to fly upward, 



332 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



But, in addition to this argumentative implication of original 
sin, I do, in the very passage claimed to deny it, expressly 
allude to and recognize its existence as a reality, only limiting 
its action as Edwards and our Confession do, as not forcing 
the will, or by any absolute necessity of nature determining 
it to evil. I say : 

Whatever effect, therefore, the fall of man may have had on his race, it 
has not had the effect to render it impossible for man to love God reli- 
giously ; and whatever may be the early constitution of man, there is 
nothing in it, and nothing withheld from it, which renders [actual] dis- 
obedience unavoidable, and [actual] obedience impossible. 

Finally, the language of the paragraph, interpreted by the 
laws of just exposition, does not teach or imply a denial of 
the doctrine of original sin. 

I have already shown that my sermon on the native 
character of man was not designed to have any reference to 
original sin ; that it spake only of the present, actual condi- 
tion of adult mind, and that the question how a man came 
into such a state was not so much as touched ; that I was 
teaching the existence of total depravity against a wily and 
practised antagonist, with the sole view of cutting up his false 
Pelagian positions, and proving total depravity and the neces- 
sity of regeneration. 

To comprehend fully the import of my language, it must 
be understood that there were two philosophical theories in 
respect to the cause of adult actual depravity : the one holding 
it to be a moral instinct, a created faculty of the soul, as 
really as any other faculty, which controlled the will according 
to its moral nature, as the helm governs the ship, and upon 
which the will could no more react than the ship can react 
on the helm ; the other, a philosophy which discards this 



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333 



instinctive, involuntary moral taste, and substitutes the direct 
efficiency of God, for the creation of all exercises and acts 
of choice, good and bad. 

These philosophical theories were prevalent long before this 
controversy arose. The question concerning original sin was 
not discussed in my congregation ; touching that question, all 
was as quiet as the sleep of infancy. The question was as to 
the voluntariness of the depravity of adult man. Keep this 
in remembrance, and then the import of the sermon cannot be 
misunderstood. After proving that the depravity of man is 
very great, I proceed to say that it is voluntary ; and this 
doctrine I advance in opposition to the philosophy which 
represents man's actual sin, his actual total depravity, as 
being the necessary coercive result of a moral instinct, or 
of divine efficiency. The question was, whether the selfish- 
ness and enmity against God, and wordliness and pride, which 
obstructed evangelical obedience in adult man, and made 
regeneration by the Spirit indispensable, was a state of mind 
produced and continued by a coercive necessity ; and in ac- 
cordance with the Bible and the Confession of Faith, and the 
whole Orthodox Church, I say — no! — but, "that God has 
endued the will of fallen man w T ith that natural liberty, that 
it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature 
determined, to good or evil." It is this nature of adult man, 
in a state of personal accountability and active depravity, that 
I am speaking of, as the subject and whole argument of the 
sermon show, in every sentence and word of the page quoted ; 
and it is of this total actual depravity of man, which makes 
regeneration by the Spirit necessary, that I say it cannot be 
the product of " an unavoidable necessity and it is of 
actual holiness and sin that I am speaking, when I say that to 
the existence of a holy or a sinful nature perception, under- 



334 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



standing, conscience and choice, are indispensable. And is this 
heresy ? Does any one believe that personal accountability, 
and actual sin, and holiness, can exist without perception, 
understanding, conscience, and choice ; and that the Bible and 
the Confession of Faith teach it ? 

Dr. Greene says. " The parties in this controversy are 
agreed that all actual sin is voluntary, and therefore criminal 
and inexcusable." — Ch. Adv. 1831, p. 348. 

Social, representative liability, and a just desert of punish- 
ment in that sense, is a possibility and a reality ; but a socio! 
liability, and personal demerit, are quite different things ; 
and if it shall be made to appear that the Bible and the Confes- 
sion do teach the possibility of personal actual sin and just 
punishment, without the existence of the faculties of percep- 
tion, understanding, conscience and choice, it will, as I believe, 
be regarded by the whole Church of God as a new discovery. 

I call this actual depravity of man native, in accordance 
with the language of the Bible and the most approved theo- 
logical writers, to indicate its universality, as what all men 
come to by nature, — that is, by the operation and influence of 
that change produced in the nature of man by the fall, — to 
mark its positiveness, as including actual enmity, selfishness, 
pride and idolatry, instead of a mere want of conformity to 
the law of God, — and especially to designate its permanence 
as compared to successive acts of choice, and its fearful im- 
mutability to all finite power. The Scriptures speak of the 
permanence and immutability of man's actual depravity — as a 
heart full of madness and of evil — fully set to do evil ; and 
Turretin calls it a " voluntary and culpable habit of will ; " 
and Edwards says, "By a general and habitual moral 
inability I mean an inability in the heart to all exercises or 
acts of will of that nature or kind, through a fixed and 



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335 



habitual inclination^ or an habitual or stated defect, or want 
of a certain kind of inclination." 

Now, not only has all I have said on the page objected to, 
a reference to the actual sin of adult man as the ground of 
the necessity of regeneration, but it is all so guarded and tied 
down, and related to the subject of actual sin, that it can by 
no possibility be torn away from it, and attached to the subject 
of original sin. For, in the very statements I make about 
the voluntary nature of which I am speaking, I allude to the 
fall and original sin, and admit and include its existence 
among the causes which fortify adult man against submission 
to God, as I have more fully done in my exposition of the 
moral inability of man in this discussion, only making the 
reservation which the Confession makes — that original sin 
does not force the will to actual sin, nor by any absolute ne- 
cessity of nature determine it to evil, so as that God is the 
author of sin, or that violence is offered to the will of the crea- ' 
tures ; or the liberty or contingency of second causes (the power 
of choosing life or death) taken away, but is rather established. 

The declarations, that there is a time when actual sin com- 
mences, and that the first sin is voluntary, uncoerced, inex- 
cusable, and might have been and ought to have been avoided 
as really as any of the actual sins that followed it, will not, I 
apprehend, alarm any large proportion of the Church. The 
distinction between original and actual sin has been universal 
in the Orthodox Church ; and the more common opinion, as I 
suppose, has always been that actual sin does not commence 
from the womb, and that the time when social liability is 
succeeded by personal demerit for actual transgression is not 
and cannot be exactly known to any but the eye of God. 
What I have asserted is, that whenever personal accountability 
does commence, in the sight of God the sinner is a free agent, 



336 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



and inexcusable for his first as really as for any other actual 
sin. 

I perceive that what I wrote ten years ago, with my eye 
wholly on the subject of man's nature as an actual sinner and 
totally depraved, read by a person at the present time, in a 
state of alarm and excitement about the Pelagian heresy on 
the subject of original sin, might, if not read with great care 
and attention, be liable to be misunderstood, as denying that 
depravity of nature which is peculiar to original sin : but the 
moment the laws of candid, correct interpretation, are applied, 
the possibility of such an interpretation's precluded, and the 
true limit, meaning, and intent of my language, is made ap- 
parent. For it cannot be that a sermon professedly against 
,the Pelagian notions of virtue and good works in man, as 
exceptions to the doctrine of total depravity, and containing a 
formal and labored argument in the defence of that doctrine, 
and inferring from it the necessity of regeneration, and an 
anti-Pelagian instantaneous regeneration by the special influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit, should be found intentionally teaching 
the very doctrine it set out to oppose, and opposing the very 
doctrine it was constructed to establish. 

Were any evidence beside the internal evidence of the dis- 
course itself necessary, it is contained in a sermon written 
about the same time that this sermon on native character 
was written, and written professedly on original sin. The 
following are my comments on several passages in Romans v. :• 

"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sin- 
ners." — Adam was created holy and placed in a state of pro- 
bation — the consequences of which were to extend not only 
to himself, but to his posterity. If he continued holy, they 
would be born holy. If he became a sinner, his children 
would be born depraved. In the hour of temptation he fell, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



337 



and lost for a world the inheritance of life, and entailed 
upon it the sad inheritance of depravity and woe. 

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one." — 
How did death reign by one man's offence, if the depravity of 
his race was not somehow a consequence of his sin 1 If his 
posterity are born holy (innocent), and became sinners by 
their own act alone, uninfluenced by what Adam did, then 
death enters the world not by one man, but by every man. 

" The judgment was by one man to condemnation ; " that 
is, the sin of one man, and one single act of sin. subjected his 
posterity to a nature prone to sin, as the consequence. 

I give these quotations to show that though, when writing 
on the total actual depravity of man, my expressions may 
have misled some to understand me as denying original sin, 
I did, at the same period, when writing professedly on that 
subject, recognize the doctrine fully and strongly, and at the 
time was never, to my knowledge, misunderstood. 

What follows is from my lecture on the Fall and its Con- 
sequences, delivered in Boston and Cincinnati : 

By the appointment of God, the character and destiny of man was 
inseparably connected with the conduct of Adam. He was in such a sense 
the federal head and representative of his posterity, that, according to 
God's appointment, had Adam continued holy, his posterity would have 
continued holy, as his disobedience has drawn after it the defections of the 
race. The universal bias of man to evil is denominated a depraved 
nature, on account of its universal tendencies to actual sin. 

Here I might stop ; for I am under no obligation to volun- 
teer statements of my opinions in respect to the subjects on 
which I am accused. My errors are to be shown by evi- 
dence ; and I say that, in this case, the evidence has utterly 
failed ; and I might, therefore, repel the charge of heresy, as 
not established. But I have no secrets on this subject, nor 

vol. in. 29 



338 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



in respect to any of the religious opinions which I hold. At 
my time of life, and especially under the circumstances in 
which I am placed, both as pastor of a flock and an instructor 
of the rising ministry of the Church, I have no right to any 
secret opinions. I scorn concealment, and therefore I will 
declare with all openness the things which I do believe. The 
Presbytery shall not suspect me of being a heretic. If I am 
a heretic, they shall know it. You shall have, in respect to 
my views of original sin, the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth. 

1. As to the federal or representative character of Adam, 
and the covenant with him and his posterity. — I have, through 
my whole public life, believed and taught that the constitu- 
tion and character of his entire posterity, as perverted or 
unperverted, depended on his obedience or defection ; and that 
he was in this respect, and by God's appointment, constitu- 
tionally the head and representative of his race. And that, 
in this sense, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary 
generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first 
transgression ; that is, their character and destiny were 
decided by his deed. 

For a more ample expression of my views, I submit the 
remarks of Dr. Bishop, President of the Miami University, 
on the subject of Social Liabilities, the best name ever 
devised for the idea ; — a name which, I hope, we shall all 
remember, as it is calculated to avoid much error which has 
arisen from the use of other phraseology. In respect to the 
book from which I am about to quote, I heartily thank that 
great and good man for having condensed so much truth into 
so small a compass ; and I do believe that the simple substi- 
tution of this technic, " social liability," would carry us all 
out of the swamp together. For we in fact think, and ought 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



339 



to speak, the same thing. After illustrating the social liabil- 
ities of men, for the conduct of others in the family, in com- 
mercial relations, and as parts of a nation, and as social and 
moral beings affected by the nameless influences of the Chris- 
tian example or evil deeds of our fellow-men, he proceeds to 
say: 

1. That every man is, by his very nature, intimately connected, in a 
great variety of ways, with thousands of his fellow-men whom he has never 
seen ; and that the conduct and the character of a single individual may 
have an extensive and a lasting influence upon millions of his fellow-men, 
though far removed from him, both as to time and place. 

2. That these liabilities may be classed under two general heads, 
namely, Natural and Positive. The son inherits a diseased or a healthy 
body, and, in many cases, also an intellectual or moral character ; and 
generation after generation sustains the character of their ancestors, by 
what may be called a natural influence. Like produces and continues like. 
But in commercial and political transactions lasting and important liabili- 
ties are created and continued by positive arrangements. 

3. That, in all cases of social liabilities, individual and representative 
responsibility are always kept ^distinct. Nor is it, in the most of cases, a 
very difficult thing to have a clear and distinct conception of these two 
distinct responsibilities. 

Every citizen of these United States who thinks at all must feel that 
himself and his children, and his children's children, are deeply interested 
in the conduct and character of the President of the United States for the 
time being. An able and virtuous president, with an able and wise and 
faithful cabinet, must be a great blessing to the millions, both the born 
and unborn, on both sides of the Atlantic. And, on the other hand, a 
weak and a wicked president and cabinet must be the occasion of incon- 
ceivable inconveniences and real privations and sufferings to countless 
millions, both of the present and succeeding generations. But yet no man 
ever thought of attributing to himself, or to his children, the personal wis- 
dom, or intellectual ability, or inflexible integrity, which has marked the 
character of any distinguished executive officer ; nor, on the other hand, 
has he ever thought of being charged individually, or of having his 
children charged individually, with the weakness or wickedness of a bad 
executive officer. He and his children, and his neighbors and their chil- 



340 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



dren, feel and acknowledge that they are personally and deeply involved in 
the consequences of the official acts of these men, whether these conse- 
quences are of a beneficial or a hurtful tendency ; but, at the same time, 
individual and personal merit and demerit, and individual and personal 
responsibility, are clearly understood, and never, for a moment, merged in 
social and representative transactions. 
From a view of the above facts it follows : 

4. That the terms guilty and innocent must, with every thinking man, 
be used in a different se?ise, when they are applied to responsibilities 
incurred by the conduct of another, from that in which they are used when 
they are applied to personal conduct. In the former application, guilty 
can only mean liability to suffer punishment, and innocent to be not liable. 
But in the latter application they mean, having violated, or having not 
violated, some moral or positive commandment. In the one case the terms 
apply to a personal act, and to personal character ; but in the other they 
only mark the nature and the consequences of a certain act or acts, as 
these consequences are felt by another person. 

5. In every case of social liability, unity is recognized. The individuals 
concerned may be millions, or only two, and they may be in every other 
respect and bearing distinct and separate ; but in the particular case in 
which liability applies they are in law only one moral person. 

The father and son, the ancestor and the descendant, have only one 
common nature, or one common right. In commercial transactions the 
company is one, though composed of many individuals ; and the nation, 
acting by the constituted authorities, with all her other varieties and dif- 
ferences, while a nation, continues one and indivisible. 

And here let me say that this principle is recognized in the 
relation of Adam to his posterity, and of theirs to him ; so 
that the effects which fell on, him as a punishment fell on them 
as a calamity. 

There is, in my apprehension, something of this constitu- 
tional social liability pervading the whole moral universe, and 
inseparable from the nature of mind and moral government, 
and the effects of temptation, character and example. It is 
probable that rational beings, constituted as they are, cannot 
be brought together so that the action of one will not in 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



341 



some degree affect the character of others. .Whether it was a 
positive appointment merely, or whether it was an inevitable 
effect flowing from the nature of things, or, which is more 
probable, the united result of both, — such was the constitution 
established by God between Adam and his seed ; so that if 
Adam should stand, all his children would retain their in- 
tegrity ; but if he should fall, they would fall with him. 
And we may well apply to the fall of our first parents the 
affecting language of Mark Antony over Caesar's body : 

44 0, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
Then yon, and I, and all of us, fell down." 

The constitution was equally certain both ways ; and in 
this respect it was just and equal. If, then, it be asked 
whether I hold that Adam was the federal head of his pos- 
terity, I answer, Certainly he was; because that which he 
did decided what was to be the character and conduct of all 
his posterity. If the inquiry is made, whether I admit the 
imputation of Adam's sin, — if imputation be understood to 
mean that Adam's posterity were present in him, and thus 
sinned in him, — I answer, No; and Dr. "Wilson answers, No. 
And here we are agreed. For if mankind were present in 
Adam, and in that sense sinned in him, who does not see that 
their sin was actual, not original, — personal, and not derived, 
or transmitted, or propagated ? 

Again, if by original sin be meant that Adam's personal 
moral qualities were transferred to his posterity (a theory 
which, like the other, had once its day), I reply that I do 
not and cannot believe any such thing; neither does Dr. 
Wilson believe it. And here let me say that all the alarm 
and all the odium which have been excited in relation to the 
divines in New England have arisen from two things : their 

vol. in. 29* 



342 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

opposition to the notion of personal identity with Adam ; and 
their denial of the transfer of his moral qualities to his pos- 
terity. But neither of these things is involved in the charges 
preferred against me by Dr. Wilson. 

What, then, is the true doctrine of original sin '? It is the 
obnoxiousness of Adam's posterity to the penal consequences 
of his transgression ; to all that came in that stream of evils 
which his offence let in upon the world. The same change 
of constitution, of nature and character, which was wrought in 
him by his transgression, appears in them through all their 
generations. This liability, this exposedness to punishment, 
is in the Confession called " guilt; " but that word, as then 
used, conveyed theologically a different meaning from what 
is now usually attached to the ferm. By guilt we now 
understand the desert of punishment for personal sin ; but 
this is not the sense of the word in the Confession of Faith ; 
there it means liability to evil in consequence of Adam's sin. 
This was another of the spots where I stumbled once at the 
language of the Confession. I could not consent to the" 
punishment in my person of the guilt of Adam's sin, as if it 
were my own. To that I do not now consent. That, I now 
believe, the Confession of Faith does not teach ; but I cor- 
dially receive it as teaching that Adam was our representative 
indirectly: that on his breaking God's righteous commands, 
the curse, which fell like a thunderbolt on the offender, struck 
all his posterity and all the animal world, struck the ground 
on which he stood, and the whole world in which he dwelt. 

"Earth felt the wound." 

This social liability is illustrated in the fall of angels. 
The influence of one master spirit drew away (as it would 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 343 

i seem, from some passages in Scripture) one-third part of 
the heavenly host. Let sedition and revolt take place in a 

I nation, — who gets it up ? Does the entire mass of the nation 
rise spontaneously and simultaneously, by one common 
impulse 7 No. Some leading mind first fires the train : and 
though one-half the population may ultimately perish under 
the reaction of the government, their death is to be traced 
up to one master-spirit as the mover and promoter of the 
whole commotion. Let us never forget the maxim, — it is 
worthy to be written in letters of gold, — u Individual and 
representative responsibility are always to be kept distinct." 
I adopt this language of Dr. Bishop, and lay it in as an ex- 
position of my own views with respect to the character of 
Adam, to guilt as imputed, and to punishment as the conse- 
quence of our social relations. I have always adopted the 
language of Edwards, as correctly stating the truth on this 
subject : 

In consequence of Adam's sin, all mankind do constantly, in all ages, 
without fail in any one instance, run into the moral evil, which is, in effect, 
their own utter and eternal perdition, and a total privation of God's favor, 
and suffering of his vengeance and wrath. 

So that the real doctrine is not that Adam's posterity were 
one in personal identity, or personally guilty by a transfer of 
sinful moral qualities or actions ; but simply that a part of 
the curse of the law that fell on Adam fell indirectly on his 
posterity in the loss of original righteousness, which would 
have been their inheritance had Adam obeyed, and that 
chancre of the constitution of human nature from which 
results the certainty of entire actual sin. Now. what the 
particular change was which furnished the ground of this 
absolute certainty that all mankind would run into sin, I do 



344 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



not profess to understand. Paul, in the fifth chapter to the 
Romans, states the facts of the case, as involving, through 
the fall, a nature spoiled, and under such an effectual bias, 
that, as soon as the mind acts, it acts wrong. This is all that 
I can say touching original sin. All is confusion and dark- 
ness beyond this. I have no light, and pretend to no knowl- 
edge. And surely there is no heresy in ignorance. I always 
believed in original sin, and that Adam was the federal head 
of his posterity ; and although I have not used generally that 
particular phrase, I believe as much in the truth it is in- 
tended to convey as any man in the Church. I believe that 
God legislated wisely for Adam ; that the effects of his fall 
reached all his posterity, and produced in them such a change 
that the human mind, which before obeyed, thenceforward 
disobeyed ; and that, in consequence of the change which took 
place in Adam himself, the bias fo holiness which, had he 
stood, would have been the blessed inheritance of all his chil- 
dren, was utterly lost, so that they now inherit a corrupt 
nature. I have always called it so. I have expressly denom- 
inated it a depraved nature. I believe they inherit this not 
as actual personal sin ; that it comes upon them not as a 
punishment of their personal sin, but as a political evil would 
come upon the people of the United States from the evil 
conduct of the chief magistrate. In a word, that we share 
the character of our fallen progenitor, and all the deplorable 
effects of his transgression. 

The following additional quotations will show that these 
views are the received doctrines of the Church : 

Turretin (as quoted by Hodge on Romans), Theol. Elench. Quast. 
ix. p. 678, says : "Imputation is either of something foreign to us, or of 
something properly our own. Sometimes that is imputed to us which is 
personally ours ; in which sense God imputes to sinners their transgres- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



345 



sions. Sometimes that is imputed which is without us, and not performed 
by ourselves ; thus the righteousness of Christ is said to be imputed to us, 
and our sins are imputed to him, although he has neither sin in himself, nor 
we righteousness. Here we speak of the latter kind of imputation, not the 
former ; because we are treating of a sin committed by Adam, not by us." 
The ground of this imputation is the union between Adam and his posterity. 
This union is not a mysterious identity of person, but, 1. " Natural, as he 
is the father, and we are the children. 2. Political and forensic, as he was 
the representative head and chief of the whole human race. The foundation, 
therefore, of imputation, is not only the natural connection which exists 
between us and Adam, since, in that case, all his sins might be imputed to 
us, but mainly the moral and federal, in virtue of which God entered into 
covenant with him as our head." 

TrcKNEY (Prcelcctioncs, p. 234) : "YVe are counted righteous through 
Christ in the same manner that we are counted guilty through Adam. 
The latter is by imputation ; therefore, also, the former." " We are not so 
foolish or blasphemous as to say, or even to think, that the imputed right- 
eousness of Christ makes us formally and subjectively righteous." 

Owen (in his work on Justification, p. 236) says : <{ Things which are 
not our own originally, inherently, may yet be imputed to us, ex justitia , 
by the rule of righteousness. And this may be done upon a double relation 
unto those whose they are, — 1. Federal ; 2. Natural. Things done by one 
may be imputed unto others, propter relationem fcederalem, because of a 
covenant relation between them. So the sin of Adam was imputed to all his 
posterity. And the ground hereof is, that we stood in the same covenant 
with him who was our head and representative." On p. 242 he says, 
<; This imputation (of Christ's righteousness) is not the transmission or 
transfusion of the righteousness of another into them which are to be jus- 
tified, that they should become perfectly and inherently righteous thereby. 
For it is impossible that the righteousness of one should be transfused into 
another, to become his subjectively and inherently." Again, p. 307: 
" As we are made guilty by Adam's actual sin, which is not inherent in 
us, but only imputed to us, so we are made righteous by the righteousness 
of Christ, which is not inherent in us, but only imputed to us." On p. 468 
he says, " Nothing is intended by the imputation of sin unto any, but the 
rendering them justly obnoxious unto the punishment due unto that sin. 
As the not imputing of sin is the freeing of men from being subject or liable 
to punishment." It is one of his standing declarations, "To he alienee 



346 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



culpa reus (that is, to be guilty of another's crime) makes no man a 
sinner." 

Knapp (in his Lectures on Theology, sect. 76) says, in stating what the 
doctrine of imputation is : 44 God's imputing the sin of our first parents 
to their descendants amounts to this : God punishes the descendants on 
account of the sin of their first parents." This he gives as a mere histor- 
ical statement of the nature of the doctrine, and the form in which its 
advocates maintained it. 

ZACHAitiiE {Bib. Theologie, vol. n. p. 394) says, 44 If God allows the 
punishment which Adam incurred to come on all his descendants, he 
imputes his sin to them all. And in this sense Paul maintains that the sin 
of Adam is imputed to all, because the punishment of the one offence of 
Adam has come upon all. ' ' 

Bretschneider, when stating the doctrine of the Eeformers, as pre- 
sented in the various creeds published under their authority, says that 
they regarded justification, which includes the idea of imputation, as a 
forensic or judicial act of God, by which the relation of man to God, and 
not the man himself, was changed. And imputation of righteousness they 
described as 44 That judgment of God, according to which he treats us as 
though we had not sinned, but had fulfilled the law, or as though the 
righteousness of Christ was ours." This view of justification they con- 
stantly maintained, in opposition to the Papists, who regarded it as a 
moral change, consisting in what they called the infusion of righteous- 
ness. 

I shall now show that this is the view entertained by the 
Professors of the Princeton Seminary : 

44 What we deny, therefore, is, first, that this doctrine involves any mys- 
terious union with Adam, any confusion of our identity with his, so that 
his act was properly and personally our act ; and, secondly, that the moral 
turpitude of that sin was transferred from him to us, — we deny the possi- 
bility of any such transfer. These are the two ideas which the Spectator 
and others consider as necessarily involved in the doctrine of imputation, 
and for rejecting which they represent us as having abandoned the old 
doctrine on the subject." 

44 The words guilt and punishment are those particularly referred to. 
The former we had defined to be liability or exposedness to punishment. 
We did not mean to say that the word never included the idea of moral 
turpitude or criminality. We were speaking of its theological usage. It is 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



847 



very possible that a word may have one sense in common life, and another 
somewhat modified in particular sciences." 

M Punishment, according to our views, is an evil inflicted on a person, 
in the execution of a judicial sentence, on account of sin. That the word 
is used in this sense, for evils thus inflicted on one person for the offence 
of another, cannot be denied. It would be easy to fill a volume with exam- 
ples of this usage." — Biblical Repertory, pp. 346, -140, 441. 

Hodge ox Romans. — The doctrine of imputation is clearly taught in 
this passage. This doctrine does not include the idea of a mysterious iden- 
tity of Adam and his race, nor that of a transfer of the moral turpitude of 
his sin to his descendants. It does not teach that his offence was person- 
ally or properly the sin of all men, or that his act was, in any mysterious 
sense, the act of his posterity. 2s either does it imply, in reference to the 
righteousness of Christ, that his righteousness becomes personally and 
inherently ours, or that his moral excellence is in any way transferred 
from him to believers. The sin of Adam, therefore, is no ground to us of 
remorse, and the righteousness of Christ is no ground of self-complacency 
in those to whom it is imputed. This doctrine merely teaches, that in 
virtue of the union, representative and natural, between Adam and his 
posterity, his sin is the ground of their condemnation, that is, of their 
subjection to penal evils ; and that, in virtue of the union between Christ 
and his people, his righteousness is the ground of their justification. — p. 
221. 

Whatever evil the Scriptures represent as coming upon us on account 
of Adam, they regard as penal ; they call it death, which is the general 
term by which any penal evil is expressed. 

It is not, however, the doctrine of the Scriptures, nor of the Reformed 
churches, nor of our standards, that the corruption of nature of which they 
speak is any depravation of the soul, or an essential attribute, or the infu- 
sion of any positive evil. " Original sin," as the confessions of the Reform- 
ers maintain, c< is not the substance of man, neither his soul nor body ; nor 
is it anything infused into his nature by Satan, as poison is mixed with 
wine ; it is not an essential attribute, but an accident, that is, something 
which does not exist of itself, an incidental quality, &c." — Bretschneider, 
vol. ii. p. 30. These confessions teach that original righteousness, as a 
punishment of Adam's sin, was lost, and by that defect the tendency to 
sin, or corrupt disposition, or corruption of nature, is occasioned. Though 
they speak of original sin as being, first, negative, that is, the loss of right- 
eousness ; and, secondly, positive, or corruption of nature, — yet by the 



348 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



latter, they state, is to be understood, not the infusion of anything in itself 
sinful, but an actual tendency or disposition to evil, resulting from the 
loss of righteousness. — pp. 229, 230. ' f 

We derive from Adam a nature destitute of any native tendency to the 
love and service of God ; and since the soul, from its nature, is filled, as it 
were, with susceptibilities, dispositions, or tendencies to certain modes of 
acting, or to objects out of itself, if destitute of the governing tendency or 
disposition to holiness and God, it has, of course, a tendency to self-gratifi- 
cation and sin. — p. 231. 

I now refer to a judicial decision of the General Assembly, 
in the case of Mr. Balch. 

The transferring of personal sin or righteousness has never been held by 
Calvinistic divines, nor by any person in our Church, as far as is known to 
us. But, with regard to his (Mr. B.'s) doctrine of original sin, it is to be 
observed that he is erroneous in representing personal corruption as not 
derived from Adam ; making Adam's sin to be imputed to his posterity in 
consequence of a corrupt nature already possessed, and derived from we 
know not what ; thus in effect setting aside the idea of Adam's being the 
federal head or representative of his descendants, and the whole doctrine 
of the covenant of works. — Assembly's Digest, p. 130. 

My next authority is Dr. Wilson himself. 

' Let us guard here against some mistakes. The doctrine of a union of 
representation does not involve in it the idea of personal identity. It does 
not mean that Adam and his posterity are the same identical persons. 
It does not mean that his act was properly and personally their act. Nor 
does it mean that the moral turpitude of Adam's sin was transferred 
to his descendants. The transfer of moral character makes no part of the 
doctrine of imputation. 

And now, supposing this to be the just and true intent of 
the terms, as indicated by the established laws of exposition, 
and confirmed by the standard writers of our Church, ac- 
quiesced in and corroborated by her highest judicature, then I 
believe and teach that "Adam being the root of all mankind, 
the guilt of his sin was imputed, and the same death in sin 



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349 



and corrupted nature conveyed to all his posterity, descending 
from him by ordinary generation : " that from - : this original 
corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and 
made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do 
proceed all actual transgressions ; and that the covenant being 
made with Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity, 
all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, 
sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression; " 
that the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists 
in the guilt of Adam's first sin. the want of original righteous- 
ness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is com- 
monly called original sin. together with all actual transgres- 
sions which proceed from it : and that by the fall of our first 
parents "all mankind lost communion with God. are under 
his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of 
this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. " 

I believe also, and always have believed and taught, that 
infants are the subjects of original sin. and. as distinguished 
from actual sin. consisting in the " influence of a prevailing 
effectual tendency in their nature* ; to actual sin : and that, 
on account of this prevalent tendency, it is. in the Bible, the 
Confession, and the common language of men. justly denomi- 
nated a depraved nature : and that, being thus depraved, and 
considered in their social liabilities as one with Adam, they, 
no more than adults, could be saved without an atonement and 
the special influence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, to 
overcome and remove this bias to evil of original corruption, 
and secure the unperverted exercise of their voluntary powers 
in spiritual obedience, and ultimately be prepared for perfect 
conformity to the will of God in heaven. I scarce ever 
attended the funeral of an infant without an express recog- 
nition of these views upon infant depravity, and the atonement 

VOL. UL SO 



350 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



and regeneration as the only ground of hope that they are 
saved. 

I close this discussion in respect to original sin with the 
following concise epitome of my own views, which, as I under- 
stand and believe, have been and are the received doctrines of 
the Church of God in every age 

1. Original sin is the effect of Adam's sin upon the consti- 
tution of his race, in consequence of his being their federal 
head and representative by a divine appointment or covenant. 

2. It does not consist in the sinfulness of matter, according 
to the Gnostics, or in the sinfulness of the soul's essence, 
according to the Manicheans : but 

3. It consists in the perversion of those constitutional 
powers and susceptibilities which in Adam before the fall 
eventuated in actual and perfect obedience, and which in their 
perverted condition by the fall eventuate in actual and total 
depravity. 

4. It is in its nature involuntary ; and yet, though certain 
and universal in its influence to pervert the will and affections, 
does neither force the will, nor by an absolute necessity of 
nature determine it to evil, or impair obligation, or excuse 
actual sin. It descends from Adam, by natural generation, 
through all the race. 

It is a bias or tendency of nature to actual sin, which 
baffles all motives and all influence short of Omnipotence, to 
prevent its eventuation in total actual depravity, or to restore 
the perverted will and affections to holy obedience. 

It is this bias to evil, the effect of the fall, which, though 
impaired by regeneration, is not annihilated, but remains in the 
regenerate, — which, combined with the habits of actual sin, 
constitutes the law in the members warring against the law of 
the mind, preventing, until the soul at death is made meet 



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351 



for heaven, the unbiased and unperverted exercise of the will 
and affections, in perfect accordance with the moral law. 

It is denominated by Edwards, and justly, an exceedingly 
evil and depraved nature, as being in all its tendencies and all 
its actual results adverse to the law ; and on the ground of 
our alliance with Adam, our federal head, and our social 
liability, it results in that choice and character which deserve 
God's wrath and curse, including the evils of the life that now 
is, death itself, and the pains of hell forever. 

Such, on the subject of Original Sin, are the views which I 
have always held and taught since I have been in the ministry : 
nor has any evidence been produced that I have ever at any 
time believed or taught the contrary. The entire evidence 
relied on is a misapprehension and misinterpretation of the 
passage adduced from my sermon ; and there is now no 
evidence, not a syllable of evidence, to sustain the charge. 
Should it be inquired why I did not explain my views on 
original sin, and the misconceptions of my discourse, to Dr. 
Wilson, as I have now clone, and save ourselves and the 
Church the affliction and annoyance of such a controversy, I 
answer that I often assured Dr. Wilson that he misunderstood 
my views and communications on that subject, and requested 
him, respectfully and earnestly, three or four times, to permit 
me to make the requisite explanations, and was as often refused. 

On the subject of Total Depravity my doctrine, and the 
evidence relied on for its support, are sufficiently manifest in 
the sermon on the Native Character of Man.^ 

It includes the absence of all holiness, — the want of con- 
formity unto, and the actual transgression of the law of God. 

It is universal — there being not a mere man, of all the 
millions of Adam's posterity, that hath lived and not sinned. 

* Vide page 53. 



352 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



It is entire ; every imagination of the thoughts of the heart 
being evil only, — there being none that do good, — no, not one. 

It is positive — as including the actual preference of the 
creature to the Creator, which is enmity against God. 

It is voluntary — though occasioned by original sin, the 
will is not forced, nor by any necessity determined to good or 
evil. But, though voluntary, with the possibility of turning 
to God, it is spontaneously immutable to any motive but the 
Word of God made effectual by his Spirit. 

It was this view of total depravity, excluding all native virtue 
from the heart, motives, words, and deeds of man, which pro- 
duced the reaction that occasioned the sermon on the native 
character of man. 

I taught, with the Confession, that "works done by unre- 
generate men, although, for the matter of them, they may be 
things which God commands, and of good use both to them- 
selves and others ; yet, because they proceed not from a heart 
purified by faith, nor are done in a right manner according to 
the Word, nor to a right end, — the glory of God, — they are 
therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man meet 
to receive grace from God. And yet their neglect of them is 
more sinful, and displeasing unto God." 

It is a doctrine which, in various forms, I have explained, 
and proved, and preached, and applied, more than any other, 
as being especially the one by which the commandment comes 
and sin revives. 

In respect to the doctrine of Kegeneration, or Effectual 
Calling, I am not apprized, precisely, what is the form of 
error which I am supposed to hold. But, if it be the Pelagian, 
as I conclude from the analogy of my supposed heresy on the 
subject of original sin, it must be that I deny that regenera- 



BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



353 



tion is a radical change of character ; but that it is in any 
special sense a work of God, save only as he has provided the 
instruction and motives which, by their natural influence and 
human endeavor, produce religion; and, of course, that I 
assert regeneration to be a gradual, and not an instantaneous 
change. 

To all such apprehensions I reply, that nothing can be 
more contrary to the entire course of my faith and teaching 
on the subject, as all the Churches know which have been 
successively under my pastoral care, and all men who have 
attended my ministry with sufficient constancy to receive the 
image and body of my preaching. There is no subject, beside 
the kindred one of total depravity, which I have dwelt upon 
with such copiousness of explanation, proofs, and earnest 
application, — line upon line, in season and out of season, — 
as the subject of regeneration; insomuch that my stated 
hearers would as soon think of suspecting me of atheism as 
of Pelagianism, on the subject of regeneration. 

That I have not been fully understood on a single point, I 
perceive but that I shall be understood, and understood as 
teaching the doctrine in accordance with the Bible, and the 
Confession, and the generally received opinion of the Orthodox 
Church, I have a comfortable hope. 

I am aware that a man's simple professions, when under 
suspicion of heresy, are but a poor defence against the amplifi- 
cations of imagination and fear, especially when divisions and 
tumults and swellings exist ; there may be for a season 
little to choose between being suspected of heresy, and being 
guilty of it. Instead, therefore, of making mere declarations 
of my belief, I shall state and illustrate my views on the 
several topics belonging to the subject of regeneration, as I 

vol. in. 30* 



354 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



have been accustomed to state them in my discourses from the 
pulpit, and in my lectures to the students under my care. 
These topics are : 

1. The nature ; 

2. The efficient cause ; 

3. The effectual means ; and - 

4. The necessity of regeneration. 

1. The Nature of Regeneration. — By this I mean 
the nature of the change which is produced in the subject by 
the Spirit of God. This, according to my understanding of 
the Bible, is correctly disclosed iri the doctrine of effectual 
calling as taught in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, 
as including "the enlightening of the minds of men spiritu- 
ally and savingly to understand the things of God, taking 
away their heart of stone, and giving a heart of flesh, — 
renewing their wills, and determining them to that which • is 
good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, — yet so 
as they come freely, being made willing by his grace, — in 
his accepted time inviting and drawing them to J esus Christ 
by his word and Spirit, — so as they (although in themselves 
dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able truly to answer 
his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and con- 
veyed therein; " or, as the Shorter Catechism teaches, more 
concisely, and with no less correctness : 

Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of 
our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and 
renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, 
freely offered us in the Gospel. 

The substance of what is taught by this various phrase- 
ology is, that a change is effected in regeneration in respect to 
man's chief end, in turning from the supreme love of self to 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



355 



the supreme love of God, — from gratifying and exalting self, 
to gratifying and exalting God, — a giving up and turning 
from the world, in all its pomp and vanities, as the chief good, 
and returning to God as the chosen portion of the soul ; 
withdrawing the affections from things below, and setting 
them on things above : ceasing to lay up our treasure on 
earth, and laying it up in heaven ; and so grieving for and 
hating our past sins, as that we turn from them all to God, 
purposing and endeavoring to walk with God in all the ways 
of new obedience. 

This, it will not, I think, be doubted, comprehends cor- 
rectly the moral change which takes place in regeneration. 

2. The author or efficient cause of regeneration is 
God. By efficient cause I mean that power without which all 
other influence is vain, and by which means otherwise impo- 
tent are made effectual. The power, then, which in all cases 
is the immediate antecedent and effectual cause of regeneration, 
is the special influence of the Holy Spirit. It is called the 
Holy Spirit, not by way of any preeminent personal excel- 
lence, but as the divine agent to whom is committed the work 
of commencing and perfecting holiness in the hearts of men. 

That God is the efficient cause of regeneration, is plainly 
taught in the text, and throughout the Bible, in the various 
forms of metaphor, direct testimony, and multiplied implica- 
tions. Is moral pollution in the way, — "I will sprinkle 
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean." Is stupidity 
and insensibility the impediment to be removed, — "I will 
take away the stony heart and give a heart of flesh." Is the 
condition of man represented by the battle-field, a capacious 
valley whitened with bones, — it is God who says unto these 
bones, "Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye 
shall live." Is it the helplessness of infancy abandoned in the 



356 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



open field, with no eye to pity, or arm to save, — it is God who 
" passes by and bids us live." Is it darkness which impedes 
our salvation, — it is " God who commandeth the light to 
shine out of darkness, who shines in our hearts." Is death 
the calamity, — a resurrection is the remedy : " You hath he 
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, and raised us 
up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ." Is it the 
annihilation of spiritual life, — regeneration is a new creation, 
u created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works." Is it the 
old man who makes resistance to the claims of God, — the 
regenerated are said to be "born again, not of blood," that 
is, not by natural descent, "nor of the will of the flesh," 
the striving and efforts of sinners to save themselves, "nor of 
the will of man," the efforts of men to save their fellow-men, 

" but Of God; WHOSOEVER LOVETH IS BORN OF GOD." 

The power of God concerned in regeneration is 

SUPERNATURAL. It is SO, 

(1.) As compared with the power of any created agent, 
man or angel. 

(2.) It is supernatural, as above the power of any law 
of nature, or natural efficacy of truth or motive, in the ordi- 
nary operation of cause and effect, natural or moral. 

(3.) It is supernatural, as distinguished from the stated 
operations of divine power, which are concerned in upholding 
all things, and guiding them in the stated order of cause and 
effect to their results, as earth and air, and rain and sun- 
shine, produce vegetation, and cause harvests to wave in the 
field. 

(4.) It is supernatural, as being an interposition to 
accomplish unfailingly a change in the will and affections of 
men, which never takes place without it. And, 

(5.) It is supernatural, as it is an act of God's 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



357 



almighty power, — as really so as the creation of worlds, or 
the resurrection of the dead. 

The question has been started, whether God is able to 
regenerate any more than he does. Unquestionably, so far 
as sufficient power is concerned, he is able to subdue all 
things to himself. The limitation in respect to the applica- 
tion of redemption is not one of impotency, but a limitation 
of the unerring wisdom and infinite benevolence of God, — the 
limitation of doing always and only, in the administration of 
grace, that which seemeth good in his sight, and is right and 
best. The discriminations of his justice and grace are volun- 
tary. So far as his power is concerned, he is as able to 
subdue the wills of rebels as to control the elements. In his 
moral kingdom he is as truly the Lord God omnipotent, 
working all things according to the counsel of his will, as he 
is in the government of the natural universe. He has placed 
nothing which he has made beyond the reach of his power ; 
and he has made nothing which he cannot and does not gov- 
ern, according to the counsel of his own will. The power of 
God in regeneration is represented as among the greatest dis- 
plays of his omnipotence ever made, or to be made, in the 
history of the universe. When this fair creation rose fresh in 
beauty from the hand of God, the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy ; but sweeter songs 
will celebrate and louder shouts attend the consummation or 
redemption, by the power of God's Spirit ; and such brighter 
glories of God, and higher illustrations of his power, will be 
manifested to principalities and powers by the Church, as will 
cause the light of his glory in physical creation to go out and 
be forgotten, as the stars fade and are lost amid the splendors 
of the sun. It is the united glory of God's power and good- 
ness in redemption, and not the wonders of physical creation, 



358 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



which inspires and perpetuate forever around his throne the 
voice of praise, as the sound of many waters and mighty- 
thunderings, to Him who loved us, and died for us, and washed 
us in his blood, and made us kings and priests unto God. 

The effect of this divine interposition is instantaneous — in 
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It must be instanta- 
neous, from the nature of the case. If man is an idolater, 
there must be a time when he gives the idol up for God ; if 
an enemy, there must be a time when he becomes reconciled ; 
if without holy love, there must be a time when it begins to 
warm the heart. 

The graces of the Spirit admit not of a progressive creation ; 
love or enmity, penitence or impenitence, faith or unbelief, 
are the only positive conditions of the human mind. There 
is no state between them. There is and can be no such thing 
as love, or repentance, or faith, half formed, and progressive 
to a completion. 

There are persons, however, of some seriousness, who seem 
desirous to approximate to evangelical belief on the subject of 
regeneration, who admit the necessity of a change in human 
character in some degree like that which we have described, 
only it is not wholly new, but the result of the progressive 
culture of the human powers by divine aid ; and since on both 
sides, we believe, they say, in the necessity of holiness, what 
difference does it make whether it comes from old principles 
or new, or whether the work is instantaneous or progressive ? 

Whatever might be thought beforehand, the difference in 
experience between a belief in instantaneous or progressive 
regeneration is manifest and great. The latter assumes fal- 
lacious and dangerous views of human nature, as including 
some seed of virtue, or principle of light and life, which needs 
only cultivation to bring it up to the maturity of holiness j is 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



359 



associated, also, with false views of holiness, as consisting in 
some nondescript, mystical goodness, which grows impercepti- 
bly under culture, as the harvest rises under rain and sunshine. 

It legitimates as virtues, efficacious to save, all those 
grounds of fallacious hope which I have already named, — 
quelling fear, preventing a sense of sin, and creating hope 
built upon the sand. 

It produces, likewise, and fosters, and makes obstinate, 
a self-righteous and self-complacent, self-justifying spirit; 
while it creates hostility to the fundamental doctrines of the 
Gospel, — the entire depravity of man, the necessity of a rad- 
ical change of character, and acquiescence in the discrimi- 
nations of divine justice and mercy, in the punishment or 
renovation and pardon of sinful men. 

And, worst of all, its tendency on communities is to cause 
prejudice and virulent hostility, not only against the doctrines 
of the Bible, but against revelation itself ; and to produce 
ultimately scepticism and rank infidelity, and scoffing at the 
.Bible and the work of the Spirit. 

3. The effectual means of regeneration is the 
Word of God. By effectual means, I understand the means 
which God employs and renders efficient in producing the 
change. That he accomplishes the change by his mighty 
power associated with means, is the unequivocal testimony of 
the Bible and the Confession of Faith. Chosen to salvation 
the elect of God are, through sanctification of the Spirit and 
belief of the truth whereunto he called them by the Gospel. 
The Gospel is denominated " the power of God and the wis- 
dom of God unto salvation." " The law of the Lord is per- 
fect, converting the soul." " The word of God is quick and 
powerful." " The seed is the word." " Being born again, 
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 



360 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



God : and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached 
unto you." " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free." " Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy 
word is truth." " Seeing ye have purified your souls in obey- 
ing the truth through the Spirit." " They shall be taught 
of God." " I drew them with the cords of love." " No man 
can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me 
draw him." ' 1 Every one, therefore, which hath heard and 
learned of the Father, cometh unto me." 

This is only a small portion of the phraseology of the Bible 
which associates God's efficiency with his word, in regenera- 
tion. That such instrumentality should, in direct terms, and 
by every variety of metaphor, be associated with the power 
of God in regeneration, if in fact no such instrumentality is 
employed, cannot be assumed without shaking the foundation 
of all confidence in the teaching of the Bible. Exposition 
may as well be abandoned ; for nothing, in that case, can be 
taught by language, which theory and imagination might not 
explain away. We might as well deny that God is the effi- 
cient cause, as that truth is the " effectual means " of regen- 
eration. But there is no necessity for denying either, and 
no authority for stripping either class of texts of their natural 
and obvious import, to mean nothing. What would be 
thought of the expositor who should insist that because men 
are begotten again by the word, therefore the power of God 
is not concerned in regeneration, and that it is all a matter of 
moral suasion and human endeavor ? But why should the 
efficiency of God defraud the word of its alleged instrument- 
ality, or the instrumentality of the word exclude the power 
of God 1 Is the union of both impossible ? It cannot be 
impossible, because, unquestionably, in the government of the 
natural world, God's almightiness is associated with the in- 



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361 



strumentality of natural causes, and may be just as possibly, 
if God pleases, in the moral world, associated with the instru- 
mentality of moral causes. 

To what purpose are laws, and institutions, and the preach- 
ing of the Gospel, if God does nothing and can do nothing by 
their instrumentality ? Are laws, and institutions, and the 
ministry of reconciliation, only the empty attendant symbols 
of God's power? Does it correspond with the usage of 
revealed language, to ascribe instrumentality to the impotent 
signals and attendants of God's agency? Is it ever said that 
God inflicted the plagues of Egypt by Aaron's rod, or threw 
down the walls of Jericho by rams' horns? The analogy 
of scriptural use forbids the ascription of instrumental agency 
to the mere symbols of the presence and power of God. Nor 
have I been able to find any declaration in the Bible that 
God regenerates by his own almighty power, without any 
instrumental agency. The Scriptures teach abundantly that 
God is the author of regeneration, and that it is the instanta- 
neous effect of his omnipotence, applied with a direct design 
to produce it ; but the fact that he does it, and that it is an 
illustrious act of omnipotence, does not decide how he does 
it, much less that he does it by power only, without means ; 
while all the passages which speak of the instrumentality of 
the word prove that he does not regenerate by omnipotence 
alone, but by power associated with the reading, and especially 
the preaching, of the word. 

With this view of the subject correspond all the implica- 
tions of the Bible. If the Gospel possesses no adaptation to 
secure in any way, as a means in the hand of God, the reno- 
vation of the heart, whence the transcendent excellence and 
importance attached to it, and the high perniciousness and 
criminality of error, and why is the almighty power of God 

vol. in. 31 



862 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



manifest only in alliance with revelation 2 Is the truth of 
God a mere arbitrary association of particular opinions with 
particular acts of God's power? It cannot be. The testi- 
mony of the Bible is express the other way. 

There is, however, in our Church, no need of controversy 
on the subject, and no room for it. 

It is not claimed that God regenerates by the truth without 
an interposition of the exceeding greatness of his own power ; 
and, without denying the Confession and Catechisms, it can- 
not be denied that what is accomplished in effectual calling 
is accomplished by his word and Spirit. 

That God is able by his direct immediate power to approach 
the mind in every faculty, and to touch all the springs of 
action and affection, I have never denied or doubted. And 
that he is able by the direct interposition of his power so to 
rectify the mind of man, as disordered by the fall, as that the 
consequence would be the immediate, unperverted exercise of 
the will and affections in obedience,*is just as evident as that 
God can create minds in such a condition that they will in 
these respects go right from the beginning ; and that in this 
manner he does retrieve the consequences of the fall, in re- 
spect to those who die in infancy, would seem to be as evident 
as that he saves them at all. That he is able, also, if it 
seemed good in his sight, to reveal the truth and manifest 
himself savingly to the heathen, is as plain as that he could 
reveal the same truths to holy men of old, and make them 
effectual through a written word and established ordinances. 
Nor is it denied or doubted, in respect to possibility, that 
God, if it seemed wisest and best under the Gospel, might 
make such manifestations of himself to the souls of men, 
attended by such energy of his almighty power, as would call 
them unfailingly into his kingdom. 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



363 



The question, as we have said, is not a question of possible 
or impossible, but a question of fact, as to the manner in 
which God does actually call effectually sinners into his 
kingdom, — a question of wisdom and goodness in doing what 
is best in the best manner. 

I have no sympathy for the opinion that it depends on 
sinners whether they be regenerated or not in the day of his 
power, or that God does all he can, and leaves the event of 
submission or not to rebel man, — and that sinners make 
themselves to differ, and are in fact the self-determining 
authors of their own regeneration. The passages quoted to 
prove such an assertion are misunderstood and perverted. 

The texts, — " What could 1 have done more for my vine- 
yard that I have not done in it?" and "he could not do 
many mighty works there, because of their unbelief/' and 
other kindred passages, do not teach that God is ever effica- 
ciously resisted by any sinner whom he attempts to subdue, 
or that there is any sinner on earth so stubborn and obstinate 
that God could not reconcile him if it seemed good in his 
sight. The limitation is of God's unerring wisdom,— and 
the " cannot" the same as when it is said he cannot deny 
himself, or cannot lie, or where God himself says, " Though 
Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not 
be towards this people." 

The question, also, has respect not to extreme cases, but 
to the ordinary methods of his sovereign power in saving 
men ; and here the Bible and Confession are express, that 
regeneration is accomplished by the word and Spirit of 
God. 

Most assuredly it is the grammatical import and obvious 
meaning, and no doubt the true intent of our Confession and 
Catechisms, that what God accomplishes in effectual calling 



364 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



he accomplishes by his word and Spirit, — effectually calls 
u by his ivord and Spirit" out of that state of sin and 
death in which men are by nature. By his word and Spirit 
enlightening their minds savingly to understand the things 
of God. By his word and Spirit taking away the heart of 
stone and giving a heart of flesh. By his. word and Spirit 
and almighty power renewing their wills, and determining 
them to that which is good. By his word and Spirit invit- 
ing and drawing sinners to Christ, yet so as they come most 
freely, being made willing by his grace. The Spirit of God 
maketh the reading, and especially the preaching of the word, 
an effectual means of convincing of sin and converting 
sinners, and building them up in holiness and comfort 
through faith unto salvation." How can that be an effect- 
ual mean of conversion which does nothings and only attends 
the display of God's omnipotence? 

Is it demanded how God can make the word effectual by 
his Spirit in regeneration ? I am not sure that the Bible, or 
the creeds, or standard writers, have explained exactly how 
the Spirit regenerates by the word, or that I shall be able to 
do justice to the representations which they have made. It 
is evident, however, that by il the word " and u the 
truth " is meant the whole revelation -which God has made 
to man : including all the truths, motives, and ordinances of 
the Bible, and all the illustrative and corroborating influence 
of his providential government; comprehending the being, 
the attributes, the character, and the eternal counsel and law 
of God, the fall and total depravity of man, the developments 
of the Trinity, and plan of redemption by Jesus Christ; 
including his divine person, mediation, atonement, and the 
terms upon which justification and eternal life are offered, 
and the ordinances and means of commending these overtures 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



865 



of mercy to the consciences and hearts of men : including 
also the Spirit, his divine person, and work of revelation, 
illumination and restraint, awakening and convincing, con- 
verting and sanctifying sinful men, to make them meet for 
heaven : and also the mingled influence of majesty and con- 
descension, justice and mercy, and all the promises and 
threatenings, and hopes and fears, attendant upon the dis- 
criminations of grace and justice, of death and judgment 
and eternity, associated with heaven and hell, according to 
the characters formed, and the deeds done in the body. 

Xow, it is admitted by all orthodox creeds and writers 
that there is a work preparatory and consequential to regen- 
eration, which the Spirit does accomplish by the instrument- 
ality of the word. It is called before regeneration common 
grace : and after, sanctification. Nor is it difficult to see the 
adaptation of the word to the requisite preparatory work. 
The thing to be accomplished in regeneration is the restora- 
tion of the vagrant will and affections from the creature to 
the Creator, — the turning from broken cisterns to God, the 
fountain of good. To accomplish this, the character and 
law of God need to be understood, the sinner's attention 
arrested, his sensibilities quickened, his conscience invigo- 
rated, and his sins set in order before him by the coming of 
the commandment ; and it is easy to see how the word is 
powerful in its adaptation after regeneration, to sanctify and 
fit believers for heaven. The Psalmist celebrates it as 
bright, rejoicing the heart,'' — u pure, enlightening the 
eyes:" and our Saviour, in his intercessory prayer for his 
disciples and people in all ages, prays, " Sanctify them 
through thy truth, — thy word is truth." • 

The only question is, whether God, by his Spirit, makes 
the word as effectual to regenerate as he does to prepare the 

vol. in. 31* 



366 



VIEWS OE THEOLOGY. 



way, and to sanctify after regeneration. And is it a thing 
intuitively impossible that God ; according to the language of 
our Confession and Catechisms, should be " pleased, in his 
appointed and accepted time, effectually to call the predesti- 
nated by his word and Spirit out of a state of sin and death, 
in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by 
Jesus Christ; by his word and Spirit enlightening their 
minds spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of j 
God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them 
a heart of flesh ; renewing their wills, and by his almighty 
power determining to that which is good, and effectually 
drawing them to Christ, yet so as they come freely, being 
made willing by his grace ; in his accepted time, inviting j 
and drawing them to Christ by his word and Spirit ; — the 
Spirit of God making the reading, but especially the preach- j 
ing of the word, an effectual mean of convincing and convert- 
ing sinners, and of building thera. up in holiness and comfort 
through faith unto salvation"? Our standards, you per- 
ceive, are unequivocal in the declaration that regeneration 
itself, as well as conviction and sanctification, is accomplished 
by the word and Spirit of God. It ascribes expressly the 
same instrumentality to the word, in regeneration, which it 
ascribes to it in conviction and sanctification. This, so far as 
I can judge, has been the prevalent doctrine of the Church 
of God in every age. Indeed, it was one of the points of 
earnest controversy between Papist and Protestant : the one 
mystifying about the internal word, as a pretext for the 
sequestration of the Bible, the other asserting its instrument- 
ality. Should the question be pressed, how the Spirit 
makes the word effectual in regeneration, the answer is : 

Not by the truth and motives of the word, as God employs 
natural causes to produce their effects. It is said expressly 



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367 



in our Confession that he does not force the will, or deter- 
mine it to good by any absolute necessity of nature, but that 
he doth persuade and enable men to embrace Jesus Christ 
freely offered to them in the Gospel. 

The mind is not a material substance, nor the means of its 
unperverted action natural causes ; and to clothe the word, 
in the hand of the Spirit, with the power of a natural cause, 
from imagery borrowed from the natural world, is to 
materialize both the word and the soul. The heart is not 
literally a stone ; nor the word of God a sword, or fire, or 
hammer, to break or melt the stony heart. The meaning is 
that the Spirit somehow, by the word, both wounds and 
heals the soul ; not as he would wound the body by a spear, 
and heal it by surgical application, — but he does it by an 
instrumentality which may be fitly represented by such 
metaphorical analogies. 

The Bible contains precisely that balanced exhibition of 
God, — of the riches of his goodness, his majesty and his con- 
descension, his love and his justice, his mercy and his inex- 
orable decision to punish the incorrigible, his long-suffering 
and sudden vengeance, — and so exhibits the glorious and dread- 
ful discriminations of his justice and his grace, as makes it 
as perfect in its adaptation when brought home to the mind 
and heart to induce submission, as the commandment, when 
commanded by the Spirit, is to produce conviction, or the 
same exhibition made real by divine illumination to sanctify 
the believer ; but sin has darkened the mind, and the god of 
this world, and the sinner's own deceitful heart of enmity, 
keep out this exhibition as a matter of living reality, so 
that the natural man understandeth not, bj his own or any 
human endeavor, the things of the kingdom of God. But, as 
the Spirit commends the law to the sinner's conscience in 



368 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



conviction of sin as man cannot, and sanctifies by the truth 
his regenerated people, so "all those whom God hath predesti- 
nated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed 
and accepted time, effectually to call, by his word and Spirit, 
out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, 
to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ ; enlightening their 
minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of 
God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them 
a heart of flesh ; renewing their wills, and by his almighty 
power determining them to that which is good ; and effectu- 
ally drawing them to Jesus Christ ; yet so as they come most 
freely, being made willing by his grace." It is all dark to 
the sinner, and mournful and terrible, till the Spirit makes the 
Gospel a reality instinct with life. 

Nor is it the letter, the simple naked truth as a mere 
matter of intellectual perception, which becomes effectual, even 
in the hand of God. Facts and propositions do not contain 
and exhibit the whole truth contained in the Bible. It is a 
depository of divine feeling, from which flows the copious 
tide of God's love and hatred, his compassion and his justice, 
his mercy and his wrath, — the meltings of his heart, the 
terrors of his power, and the energy of his will. All the 
reality of divine feeling is expressed in the Bible ; but the 
natural man understandeth it not, — he reads the letter only 
which killeth. But it is the Spirit which giveth life, "the 
words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are 
life," manifesting the truth and reality of divine feeling to 
the soul. While the sinner reads with darkened mind the 
sacred page, the Spirit makes it luminous, and quick, and 
powerful, — it is as if written upon transparencies with invisi- 
ble ink, — unseen and unfelt, till the illumination of the Spirit 
throws it out in letters of fire. 



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369 



Then the heavens illuminated declare the glory of God, 
and the inspired page shines with overpowering splendor.* 
Both these united manifestations of the vrorks and word of 
God are celebrated in the 19th Psalm : 

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his 
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. 
Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of 
the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun ; which is as a 
bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to 
run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit 
unto the ends of it : and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The 
law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is 
sure, making wise the simple ; the statutes Of the Lord are right, rejoicing 
the heart ; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 

In accordance with these views of the proper instrumental- 
ity of the word in regeneration, is the testimony of Augus- 
tine, as quoted by Knapp : 

With respect to the manner in which saving grace operates, Augustin 
believed that in the case of those who enjoy revelation, grace commonly 
acts by means of the word, or the divine doctrine, but sometimes directly • 
because G-od is not confined to the use of means. On this point there was 
great logomachy. — Khapp's Theology, vol. n. p. 457. 

To the same purpose is the exposition by Calvin of 
Hebrews 4 : 12 : " For the word of God is quick, and power- 
ful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and 
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." 

It is to be observed that the apostle is here speaking of the word of God 
which is brought to us by the ministry of men. For these imaginations 
are silly and even pernicious, to wit, that the internal word, indeed, is effica- 
cious, but that the word which proceeds from the mouth of man is dead and 



370 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



destitute of all effect. I confess, truly, that its efficacy does not proceed 
from the tongue of man, nor reside in the word itself, but that it is owing 
entirely to the Holy Spirit ; nevertheless this is no objection to the idea 
that the Spirit puts forth his power in the preached word. For God, since 
he does not speak by himself, but by men, sedulously insists on this, lest 
his doctrine should be received contemptuously, because men are its 
ministers. Thus Paul, when he calls the Gospel the power of God (Rom. 

I : 16), purposely dignifies his preaching with this title, because he saw 
that it had been slandered by some and despised by others. Moreover, 
when he calls the word living, its relation to men is to be understood, as 
appears more clearly in the second epithet ; for he shows what this life is, 
when he then calls it efficacious ; for it is the design of the apostle to show 
what the use of the word is in respect to us. 

The words rendered living and efficacious in the above 
paragraph are in the English version translated quick and 
powerful. 

The following is the comment of Calvin on Romans 10 : 17 : 

II So ; then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word 
of God." 

This is a remarkable passage concerning the efficacy of preaching, since 
it testifies that faith proceeds from it. He, indeed, confessed just before 
that it accomplished no good by itself ; but where it pleases the Lord to 
work, this is the instrument of his power. God by the voice of man acts 
efficaciously, and by his ministry creates faith in us. In this manner that 
Papal phantasm of implicit faith, which separates faith from the word, 
falls to the ground. 

The Synod of Dort is unequivocal also in the doctrine of 
effectual calling by the word and Spirit. 

What, therefore, neither the light of nature nor the law could do, that 
God performs by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the word, or the 
ministry of reconciliation ; which is the Gospel concerning the Messiah, by 
which it hath pleased God to save believers, as well under the Old as under 
the New Testament. — ScoWs Synod of Dort, p. 137. 

But in like manner, as by the fall man does not cease to be man, 
endowed with intellect and will, neither hath sin, which has pervaded 



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371 



the whole human race, taken away the nature of the human species, but it 
hath depraved and spiritually stained it ; so even this divine grace of 
regeneration does not act upon men like stocks and trees, nor take away 
the proprieties (or properties, proprieties) of his will, or violently compel 
it while unwilling ; but it spiritually quickens (or vivifies), heals, cor- 
rects, and sweetly, and at the same time powerfully inclines it : so that 
whereas before it was wholly governed by the rebellion and resistance of 
the flesh, now prompt and sincere obedience of the Spirit may begin to 
reign. — Ibid, p. 141. 

But in the same manner as the omnipotent operation of God, whereby he 
produces and supports our natural life, doth not exclude but require the 
use of means, by which God in his infinite wisdom and goodness sees fit to 
exercise this his power, so this fore-mentioned supernatural power of God 
by which he regenerates us in nowise excludes or sets aside the use of the 
Gospel, which the most wise God hath ordained as the seed of regeneration 
and the food of the soul. Wherefore, as the apostles, and those teachers 
who followed them, have piously instructed the people concerning this 
grace of God, in order to his glory and to the keeping down of all pride, 
in the mean time neither have they neglected (being admonished by the 
holy Gospel) to keep them under the exercise of the word, the sacraments, 
and discipline : so, then, be it far from us, that teachers or learners in the 
Church should presume to tempt God, by separating those things which 
God, of his own good pleasure, would have most closely united together. 
For grace is conferred through admonitions, and the more promptly we do 
our duty, the more illustrious the benefit of God, who worketh in us, is 
wont to be, and the most rightly doth his work proceed. To whom alone 
all the glory, both of the means and their beneficial fruits and efficacy, is 
due for everlasting. Amen. — Ibid. p. 112. 

WlTSlUSj a standard writer in the Church, says : 

Regeneration is that supernatural act of God whereby a new and divine 
life is infused into the elect, — persons spiritually dead, — and that from 
the incorruptible seed of the word of God made fruitful by the infinite 
power of the Spirit. 

Witherspoox, one of the best standard writers in our 
Church, and whose treatise on regeneration is the best written 
and the most judicious, scriptural, copious, accurate, and 



372 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



experimental dissertation upon that subject in the English 
language, speaking of the nature of regeneration, says : 

As, therefore, the change is properly of a moral or spiritual nature, it 
seems to me properly and directly to consist in these two things : 1. That 
our supreme and chief end be to serve and glorify God, and that every 
other aim be subordinate to this. 2. That the soul rest in God as its chief 
happiness, and habitually prefer his favor to every other enjoyment. — p. 
137. 

The following passages imply the associated influence of 
means : 

The deplorable and naturally helpless state of sinners doth not hinder 
exhortations to them in Scripture, and, therefore, takes not away their 
obligation to duty. See an address, where the strongest metaphors are 
retained, the exhortation given in these very terms, and the foundation of 
the duty plainly pointed out. "Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that 
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." From 
which it is very plain that the moral inability under which sinners now 
lie, as a consequence of the fall, is not of such a nature as to take away 
the guilt of sin, the propriety of exhortations to duty, or the necessity of 
endeavors after recovery. 

But what shall we say ? Alas ! the very subject We are now speaking 
of affords a new proof of the blindness, prejudice and obstinacy, of sinners. 
They are self-condemned, for they do not act the same part in similar cases. 
The affairs of the present life are not managed in so preposterous a man- 
ner. He that ploughs his ground and throws in his seed cannot so much 
as unite one grain to the clod ; nay, he is not able to'conceive how it is 
done. He cannot carry on, nay, he cannot so much as begin, one single 
step of this wonderful process toward the subsequent crop, — the morti- 
fication of the seed, the resurrection of the blade, and gradual increase, 
till it come to perfect maturity. Is it, therefore, reasonable that he should 
say, "I, for my part, can do nothing? It is, first and last, an effect of 
divine power and energy. And God can as easily raise a crop without 
sowing as with it, — in a single instant, and in any place, as in a long 
time, by the mutual influence of soil and season; I will therefore spare 
myself the hardship of toil and labor, and wait with patience, till I see 
what he will be pleased to send." Would this be madness ? Would it be 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



373 



universally reputed so ? And would it not be equal madness to turn the 
grace of God into licentiousness ? Believe it, the warning is equally rea- 
sonable and equally necessary in spiritual as in temporary things. — pp. 
134, 135. 

The authority of Owen is among the best of Orthodox 
authorities. His language is as follows : 

We grant that in the work of regeneration the Holy Spirit towards those 
that are adult doth make use of the word, both the law and the Gospel, 
and the ministry of the Church, in the dispensation of it, as the ordinary 
means thereof ; yea, this is ordinarily the whole external means that is 
made use of in this work, and an efficacy proper unto it, it is accompanied 
withal. 

The power which the Holy Ghost puts forth in our regeneration is such, 
in its acting or exercise, as our minds, wills and affections, are suited to be 
wrought upon, and to be affected by it, according to their natures and 
natural operations. 8 'Turn thou me, and I shall be turned ; draw me, 
and I shall run after thee." He doth neither act in them any otherwise 
than they themselves are meet to be moved and move, to be acted and act, 
according to their own nature, power and ability. He draws us with c< the 
cords of a man." And the work itself is expressed by persuading — " God 
persuade Japhet ; " and alluring — " I will allure her into the wilderness 
and speak comfortably; " — for, as it is certainly effectual, so it carries no 
more repugnancy unto our faculties than a prevalent persuasion doth. So 
that he doth not, in our regeneration, possess the mind with any enthusi- 
astical impressions, nor acteth absolutely upon us as he did in extraordi- 
nary prophetical inspirations of old, where the minds and organs of the 
bodies of men were merely passive instruments, moved by Him above their 
own natural capacity and activity, not only as to the principle of work- 
ing, but as to the manner of operation. 

He therefore offers no violence or compulsion unto the will. This that 
faculty is not naturally capable to give admission unto. If it be compelled, 
it is destroyed. - - Owen's Works, vol. n. p. 371. 

Howe is equally express on this subject. He says : 

And whereas, therefore, in this work there is a communication and 
participation of the divine nature, this is signified to be his divine power. 

vol. in. 32 



374 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



If you look to 2d Peter 2 : 3, 4, compared, "According as his divine 
power hath given us all things appertaining to life and godliness, through 
the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue ; whereby 
are given to us exceeding great and precious promises ; that by these you 
might be partakers of the divine nature." Here is a divine nature to be 
communicated and imparted in this great and glorious work. How is it 
to be communicated ? It is true it must be by apt and suitable means, — 
to wit, by the great and precious promises given us in the Gospel. But it 
must be by the exertion, too, of a divine power. Though God do work 
suitably to an intelligent nature when he works upon such subjects, yet he 
works also suitably to himself, " according as his divine power hath given 
us all things pertaining to life and godliness," or to the godly life, in order 
to the ingenerating the godly life his divine power hath given us by the 
exceeding great and precious promises,, a divine nature. The instrument- 
ality and subserviency of these "exceeding great and precious promises " 
is greatly to be considered, God working herein suitably to the nature of 
an intelligent subject. Here is a change to be wrought in his nature-— a 
nature that is corrupt, depraved, averse from God, alienated from the 
divine life ; this nature is now to be attempered to God, made suitable to 
him, made propense and inclined towards Jiim. This might be done, it is 
true, by an immediate exertion of almighty power, without any more ado. 
But God will work upon men suitably to the nature of man. And what 
course doth he therefore take ? He gives " exceeding great and precious 
promises," and in them he declares his own good will, that he might win 
theirs. In order to the ingenerating grace in them, he reveals grace to 
them by these great and precious promises. And what is grace in us ? 
Truly grace in us is good will towards God, or good nature towards God, 
which can never be without a transformation of our vicious, corrupt nature. 
It will never incline towards God, or be propense towards God, till he make 
it so by a transforming power. But how doth he make it so ? By discov- 
ering his kindness and goodness to them in <c exceeding great and precious 
promises," satisfying and persuading their hearts, — "I mean nothing 
but kindness towards you, why should you be unkind towards me ? I am 
full of good will towards you ; will you requite it with perpetual ill will 
and everlasting enmity towards me? " Thus the " exceeding great and 
precious promises' 9 are instruments to the communicating a divine 
nature to us, though that divine nature be ingenerated by a niighty power. 
God doth work at the rate of omnipotency in the matter, by the exertion 
of almighty power, but yet suitably to our nature, so as to express his 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



375 



mind, and kind design, and good Trill, by the exceeding great and precious 
promises contained in the Gospel. 

And if it were not so, he might as well make use of any other means as 
the Gospel to work upon souls by. But the Gospel is the word of hi3 
grace. 

There would seem to be the same evidence of instrumental 
action of the word as employed by the Spirit, which attends 
and evidences the direct efficacy of natural causes. How do 
we learn the existence and power of natural causes 3 We see 
not power itself, and infer it only from the uniformity with 
which the effect .follows the application of the cause. It never 
exists without it. and always attends its application. But the 
same evidence of instrumental influence attends the ministra- 
tion of the word of God. As a general fact, no spiritual life 
commences in its absence, and always in some form of asso- 
ciation with its presence ; and whatever may be the theory of 
ministers on the subject, they all pray at the close of their 
sermons that God would make his word effectual, clothe it 
with power, make it quick and powerful. The fire and the 
hammer to break, and melt, and purify the heart. 

Is the question still repeated. How does God make the 
word effectual in regeneration by his Spirit 3 That question 
belongs not to me. but to the Lord of the Bible ; and has 
been long since asked of him. and answered by him. Nico- 
demus saith unto him. "How can these things be? 73 And 
the answer was. ,: The wind bloweth where it listeth. and 
thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
cometh. and whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of 
the Spirit." 

Does it seem to any to be impossible that God should sav- 
ingly enlighten by his word and Spirit, and make "the read- 
ing, and especially the preaching of his word, an effectual 
mean of conviction and conversion " 1 It should be remem- 



376 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



bered, that" many things are possible with God, whicji seem 
impossible to men. That our philosophy is not the counsel of 
his will, according to which he worketh all things ; nor our 
capacity of comprehension the limit of God's almighty power. 
Where the lamp of our reason goes out, and far beyond what 
eye hath seen or heart conceived, he holds on his eternal 
way in the great deep, and amid clouds and darkness, im- 
penetrable to created mind. But in this unexplored and deep 
darkness, that he does a thing is the highest possible evi- 
dence of its rectitude, and that he has said a thing the highest 
possible evidence of its truth. On the ground, then, of 
divine declaration, we rest our confidence that God can make 
his word and Spirit an effectual means of the conviction and 
conversion of sinners. 

4. Why is the power of God necessary to regen- 
eration ? Why may not argument and motive prevail on 
men to turn to God ? 

The power of God is not necessary because the will of man 
is forced, or by any absolute necessity of nature determined 
to evil. But it is necessary because the bias to actual sin 
occasioned by the fall is such as eventuates in a perverse 
decision of the will and affections in respect to the chief good, 
inducing the preference of the creature to the Creator ; and 
because, when this perverse decision is once made, the heart 
is fully set and incorrigible to all motive, and immutable in 
its way, — to which is to be added, the power of habit resulting 
from the repetition of evil desire, and purpose, and gratifica- 
tion ; and though altogether they force not the will, nor 
decide it wrong by an absolute necessity of nature, or cancel 
obligation, or afford excuse, they do, nevertheless, render all 
means and efforts abortive which are not made effectual by 
the special influence of the Holy Spirit. 



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377 



During this aberration of the will and affections from God, 
there is nothing remaining to man which, by any possible 
culture, can become religion. 

No emotions of the sublime, in view of the majesty of God, 
which become adoration : no admiration of the adaptation of 
his character and laws to good results, or of the Gospel to 
sustain law and recover the lost, which produce holy compla- 
cency : no delicacy of taste, or tenderness of sensibility, which 
will expand and amplify into love : no pleasure in doing good 
rather than evil, which, by culture, can be made benevolence, 
embracing God with supreme and his subjects with impartial 
good will : no patriotism which can be kindled into piety ; 
and none of the natural affections which unite in tender ties 
the family, which become cords of love to draw back the 
heart from the creature to God : no amiableness and good 
nature, which inspire evangelical self-denial for Christ's sake ; 
and no piety which so extends beyond the sphere of the senses 
as to feel for the sorrows of the soul, and the woes of eternity : 
no power of intellect or urgency of conscience, or fear of 
punishment, as will ever in the order of cause and effect event- 
uate in godly sorrow ; nor is there any power of institutions 
or of doctrine, or argument or eloquence, which ever enlightens 
savingly the dark mind, or wakes up the pulse of life in the 
dead soul. As I have said in my sermon on the native 
character of man, the discourse in which the chief evidence of 
my Pelagianism is supposed to be contained, — " All which is 
admirable in intellect, or monitory in conscience, or compre- 
hensive in knowledge, or refined in taste, or delicate in sensi- 
bility, or powerful in natural affection, may be found in man 
as the result of constitution, or the effect of intellectual- and 
moral culture : but religion is not found, except as the result 
of a special divine interposition. The temple is beautiful, 

vol. in. 32* 



378 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



but it is a temple in ruins ; — the divinity is departed, and 
the fire on the altar is extinct." 

It follows, therefore, that except a man be born again, — be 
born from above, be born of the Spirit, be born of God, — he 
cannot see the kingdom of God. 

But I pass on to the next charge — 

Charge III. — Of propagating a doctrine of Per- 
fection, &c. (Vide page 88). 

On this subject it will not be necessary to go into any 
extended analysis. The subject in discussion is that of evan- 
gelical obedience, and the ability of the sinner to render it. 
I do teach that a sinner is able to render such obedience as 
the Gospel requires, and that so far as God renders him willing 
he is perfect. But my sermon nowhere teaches that God does 
actually render him willing to keep all his commandments. 
I know that to effect this nothing is needful but that the sin- 
ner should be willing ; and where once he is so, all obstacle is 
removed. If my language in the sermon does convey the 
idea that a sinner is ever so rendered willing that he keeps 
the entire will of God, I conveyed that which I did not mean. 
And Dr. Wilson knows that this is and must be so ; for he 
has himself admitted that he does not believe that I hold 
the doctrine of the Perfectionists. But what do I say '? 

Indeed, to be able and unwilling to obey God, is the only possible way in 
which a free agent can become deserving of condemnation and punishment. 
So long as he is able and willing to obey, there can be no sin ; and the 
moment the ability of obedience ceases, the commission of sin becomes im- 
possible. — p. 22. 

What, then, when he moves on to that work of sovereign mercy which 
no siianer ever resisted, and without which no one ever submitted to God, 
what does he do ? When he pours the daylight of omniscience upon the 
soul, and comes to search out what is amiss, and put in order that which 
is out of the way, what impediment to obedience does he find to be removed, 



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879 



and what work does lie perform ? He finds only the will perverted, and 
obstinately persisting in its wicked choice ; and in the day of his power 
all he accomplishes is to make the sinner willing. — p. 31 . 

Both passages respect willingness to obey the Gospel, and 
have no reference to a perfect obedience of the moral law. 

What, then, is the evidence that I propagate a doctrine of 
Perfection ? 1. That I teach the doctrine of man's natural 
ability as a free agent to obey the Gospel. 2. That this 
doctrine tends to the doctrine of Perfection. 3. That the 
Perfectionists claim Dr. Beecher as being on their side. 4. 
That some young man somewhere has written a letter to 
Theodore Weld with a view to convert him to Perfectionism. 
5. That I have warned the students against the doctrine of 
Perfection. 

Dr. Wilson knows that this is no evidence. But then he 
asserts that some of the students in Lane Seminary held those 
notions, and were Perfectionists in principle. Supposing they 
were, — does that prove that / taught the doctrine? There 
was a Hopkinsian student in Dr. Mason's Seminary, in New 
York, — does that prove that Dr. Mason was a Hopkinsian ? 
But there is one fact, which has been proved on the subject, 
and into which Dr. Wilson ought to have inquired before he 
ventured to ring the bell of alarm, and that is, that there was 
not one Perfectionist in the seminary. Prof. Biggs and 
several of the students have been examined before you, and 
they expressly say that they do not know of a single young 
man in that institution who holds the Perfectionist notions ; 
and all those, and especially my warning the students against 
the doctrine, are brought to prove that I propagate it ! 

Dr. Wilson says that ability and obligation, when brought 
together, imply absolute perfection. And so say the Per- 
fectionists. But Dr. Wilson does himself great injustice, if he 



380 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



says that there is no man but must be perfect, if he has the 
power of being so. That proposition assumes that every free 
agent does all that he is able to do ; so that, if you show that 
he is able to keep God's commandments, it proves that he 
does keep them. 

I have proved that man is able to obey the commandments 
of God, whether in the Gospel or the law. But Dr. Wilson 
says, if so, then I hold that man is perfect ; because no free 
agent has ability, unless he does all that he is commanded 
to do. 

[Dr. Wilson said that Dr. Beecher had admitted that so 
long as a man is both able and willing there can be no sin. 
Did he mean to refute his own argument ?] 

Dr. Beecher replied by asking whether all men who were 
able to pay their honest debts do always, pay them 1 and 
whether, if a man did not pay his "debts, it follows that of 
course he was not able ? Did a miser give always according 
to his ability ? or is not a liar able to speak the truth ? Dr. 
Beecher said he was amazed at the argument of the Per- 
fectionists, and still more that his brother Wilson should 
have classed himself with them. 

But, said Dr. Beecher, another argument brought against 
me is that the heresies I have taught lead to the doctrine of 
Perfection, as their natural result. Dr. Wilson has conceded 
that he himself never supposed I meant to teach Perfection. 
But he affirms that I teach that from which others draw the 
doctrine of Perfection as an inference. Now, admitting the 
fact that they do draw such an inference, the question is 
whether they draw it logically, — whether my premises lead to 
any such conclusion ? And I have proved that they do not. 
Will Dr. Wilson affirm that a man holds and teaches what- 
soever other men draw as inferences from his language ? 



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381 



There were ignorant and unlearned men who perverted even 
the language of Paul. If a man's doctrine is to be tested by 
the use which heretical persons make of it, then Dr. Wilson 
himself is most certainly a heretic. For did not the Shakers 
claim him ? and did not the New Lights claim him ? They 
did ; and insisted that, in maintaining their systems, they 
were only carrying out the principles which Dr. Wilson had 
laid down. Such a ground of charge will not do ; it is a 
sword which cuts both ways. 

Again, I am charged with preaching the doctrine of 
regeneration as accomplished by the truth. On a topic like 
this much might be said. I shall, however, content myself 
with saying but little. I have no theory to produce and 
descant upon ; but shall refer simply to the Catechism and 
to the Bible. What says the Shorter Catechism ? 

Q. 89. How is the Word made effectual to salvation ? 

A. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching 
of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and 
of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto sal- 
vation. 

And what says the Larger Catechism ? 

Q. 155. How is the Word made effectual to salvation ? 

A. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching 
of the "Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing and humbling 
sinners ; of driving them out of themselves and drawing them unto Christ ; 
of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will ; of 
strengthening them against temptations and corruptions ; of building them 
up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through 
faith unto salvation. 

And what says the Confession ? 

All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is 
pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his 
word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by 
nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ ; enlightening their minds 



382 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God ; taking away 
their heart of stone and giving unto them an heart of flesh ; renewing their 
wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good ; 
and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ ; yet so as they come most 
freely, being made willing by his grace. — Ch. x. sec. 1. 

And now I beg leave to submit such quotations from the 
Bible as shall present the views that I entertain on this 
subject. 

See Romr 8 : 30 ; 11 : 10. Eph. 1 : 10, 11. 2 Thess. 2 : 13, 14. 2 
- Cor. 3 : 3, 6. Rom. 8 : 2. Eph. 2 : 1—5. 2 Tim. 1 : 9, 10. Acts 26 : 
18. 1 Cor. 2 : 10, 12. Eph. 1 : 17, 18. Ezek. 36 : 26 ; 11 : 19. Phil. 
2 : 13. Deut. 30 : 6. Ezek. 36 : 27. Eph. 1 : 19. - John 6 : 44, 45. 
Cant. 1 : 4. Psa. 110 : 3. John 6 : 37. Rom. 6 : 16, 17, 18. 

The whole matter turns upon this. — a thing Ayhich is done 
by instrumental agency cannot at the same time be done by 
direct agency, because it involves a contradiction. Now, 
our book says that regeneration is accomplished by the 
instrumentality of the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ ; 
and the Bible declares that men are begotten by the incor- 
ruptible seed of the Word ; and Paul declares that it is by 
the cross of Christ that he is crucified to the world. The 
Catechism and the Bible, therefore, both say that the saving 
change in man is accomplished by instrumentality ; and the 
charge against me implies that this is untrue. We both 
admit that it is God who converts ; but I say he converts 
men through his Word of truth, and Dr. Wilson says that 
he converts them by a direct agency, without any interven- 
ing instrumentality whatever. On account of this difference 
between us, he charges me with heresy. My answer is, to 
the law and to the testimony. 

And, first, the subject does not require in its own nature 
the intervention of God's naked omnipotency. This, indeed, 
would be required, if an operation was to be performed in the 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



383 



natural world. Matter can be moved in no other way. But, 
as the effect is a moral one, being none other than a change 
of an enemy into a friend, what is the instrumentality by 
which it is to be effected ? Must not that be moral also ? 
Why did Christ die ? Why was his atoning blood put into 
the hand of the Spirit to be thrown by him upon hard-hearted 
man, that he may be subdued to love and obedience 1 Are 
these the means which God employs when he works a change 
in things material and natural ? What should God employ 
to move a free agent, but the motives so abundantly contained 
in his own "Word ? 

The charge assumes that he works this change without 
means of any kind. Now, I don't philosophize about the 
matter. Let them who do tell us how enemies are recon- 
ciled. It is not for me to say how God does .this work. It is 
for God alone to tell. God says he does it by the Word ; 
and the Catechism says he makes the Word an effectual 
means of doing it ; and if the Word has done it, and has 
been effectual in doing it, then it is not done without the 
Word by direct power. If a thing cannot be done in two 
different ways at the same time, and it is known from good 
evidence that it is done in one way, then we know that it is 
not done in the other way. A tree cannot be cut down with 
an axe. and at the same time pushed down by the unaided 
strength of a man's hand. If he pushes it down, he does not 
cut it down ; if he cuts it down, he does not push it down. 
And as God has said that he makes the preaching of the 
Gospel effectual, no man may set aside God's testimony in 
order to introduce his own philosophy. This is my ground : 
it is not new divinity ; and if it is heresy, I shall carry it out 
of the Church with me, — and yet I hope that I shall leave it 
in the Church too. 



384 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



IV. Another charge which I am to answer is that 
of having slandered the whole Church of God.— 
(p. 89.) 

I charge Dr. Beecher with the sin of slander, namely : 

Specification 1. — In belying the whole church of God. 

The Doctor's statements are these : " There is no position which unites 
more universally and entirely the suffrages of the whole human race than 
the necessity of a capacity for obedience to the existence of obligation and 
desert of punishment." Again : " The doctrine of man's free agency and 
natural ability, as the ground of obligation and guilt, has been the received 
doctrine of the Orthodox Church in all ages." — Sermon " Dependence and 
Free Agency," pp. 23 and 36, 

Specification 2. — In attempting to bring odium upon all who sincerely 
receive the standards of the Presbyterian Church, and to cast all the 
Reformers, previous to the time of Edwards, into the shade of ignorance and 
contempt. 

Dr. Beecher says : " Doubtless the impression often made by their 
language (language of the Reformers) has been that of natural impotency ; 
and in modern days there may be those who have not understood the 
language of the Reformers, or of the Bible, on this subject ; and who 
verily believe that both teach that man has no ability, of any kind or 
degree, to do anything that is spiritually good, and that the rights of God 
to command and to punish survive the wreck and extinction in his subjects 
of the elements of accountability. Of such, if there be such in the church, 
we have only to say, than when, for the time, they ought to be teachers, 
they have need that some one should teach them which be the first prin- 
ciples of the oracles of God." — Sermon " Dependence and Free Agency," 
p. 41. Again : 

<f It must be admitted, however, that from the primitive age down to 
the time of Edwards, few saw this subject with clearness, or traced it with 
uniform precision and consistency. His appears to have been the mind 
that first rose above the mists which long hung over the subject." — p. 41. 
Again : 

" So far as the Calvinistic system, as expounded by Edwards and the 
disciples of his school, prevailed, revivals prevailed, and heresy was kept 
back. And most notoriously it was c dead orthodoxy ' which opened the 
dikes, and let in the flood 'of Arminian and Unitarian heresy.' " By 
attending to the whole passage, page 48, same sermon, the Presbytery will 
see that "dead orthodoxy," as the Doctor calls it, was the doctrine of 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



885 



man's natural impotency to obey the Gospel. — p. 48. The Doctor attempts 
to make us believe that, from the time of Edwards, the theory of this 
sermon has been, and now is, the received doctrine of the ministers and 
churches of New England. The truth of this I am not prepared to admit, 
bad as I think of the New England theologians in general ; but I am not 
prepared to deny it. Be it so, — the matter is so much the worse. Again 
the Doctor proceeds, in his strain of calumny, — " Far the greater portion 
of the revivals of our land, it is well known, have come to pass under the 
auspices of Calvinism, as modified by Edwards and the disciples of his 
school, and under the inculcation of ability and obligation, and urgent 
exhortations of immediate repentance and submission to God ; while con- 
gregations and regions over which natural impotency and dependence, 
and the impenitent use of means, and waiting God's time, have disclosed 
their tendencies, have remained, like Egypt, dark beside the land of 
Goshen ; and like the mountain of Gilboa, on which there was no rain, nor 
fields of offering ; and like the valley of vision, dead, dry, very dry." — 
p. 49. 

And, to complete the climax, the Doctor adds : " No other obstruction to 
the success of the Gospel is so great, as the possession of the public mind 
by the belief of the natural and absolute inability of unconverted men. It 
has done more, I verily believe, to wrap in sackcloth the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, and perpetuate the shadow of death on those who might have been 
rejoicing in his light, than all errors beside. I cannot anticipate a greater 
calamity to the church than would follow its universal inculcation and 
adoption. And most blessed and glorious, I am confident, will be the 
result, when her ministry everywhere shall rightly understand and teach, 
and their hearers shall universally admit, the full abiliUj of every sinner 
to comply with the terms of salvation." — p. 52. 

Let the Presbytery compare all this with the history of the Church, and 
the doctrine of our standards on original sin, total depravity, the misery 
of the fall, regeneration, and effectual calling-, and say whether there is an 
Arminian, or a Pelagian, or a Unitarian, in the land, who will not agree 
with Dr. Beecher, and admit "the full ability of every sinner to comply 
with the terms of salvation," and unite with him in considering it a 
calamity for the doctrines of our standards to be universally adopted ! 

But I rather think that such slander as this is not action- 
able. Men are usually prosecuted for slandering one another ; 
for speaking falsely of men above ground, not below ground ; 
vol in. 33 



386 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



and the whole Church of God is not a living agent to be the 
object of slander. All that I have done is to state historical 
facts, according to my knowledge of history. And if in so 
doing I have ever fallen into error, it is not slander. If I 
have misread the documents left to us by the fathers, it is a 
mistake, but it is not slander. But I have proved the truth 
of my allegations with respect to the Church. I have shown 
that she holds, and has held in all ages, that man is a free 
agent, but lies in a condition of moral impotency ; and I say 
that this is no slander on the Church, but the reverse. It is 
not to her discredit, but to her honor, that she believes the 
truth. If I had said that the Church held the doctrine of 
Fatalism, and had failed to prove it, that would have been a 
slander indeed. And now I ask whether Dr. Wilson's 
charity could not by any ingenuity have found out a more 
favorable construction to put upon my course ? And even 
admitting that I had fallen into a mistake in stating what I 
believe to be true, could he not have found for my error a 
more brotherly name ? 

I have not slandered, then, the Church of God, in teaching 
that they held to the doctrine of man's natural ability as the 
foundation of his accountable agency, but have proved the 
truth of it, from Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, to Dr. Wilson's 
friend, Dr. Matthews, by an unbroken chain of historical 
extracts ; while Dr. Wilson, by denying this, and assuming 
that they taught, as the doctrine of the Bible, that it 
requires no ability of any kind in fallen man to make him an 
accountable agent, and a subject of God's moral government, 
has deeply slandered them. 

While on this subject of the imputation of Adam's sin to his 
posterity, he will seem to multitudes to have equally slan- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



387 



dered them by his following statements in this Presbytery. 
Dr. Wilson said : 

Let us guard here against some mistakes. The doctrine of a union of 
representation does not involve in it the idea of personal identity. It does 
not mean that Adam and his posterity are the same identical persons. It 
does not mean that this act was personally and properly their act. Nor 
does it mean that the moral turpitude of Adam's sin was transferred to his 
descendants. The transfer of moral character makes no part of the doc- 
trine of imputation. 

Dr. Wilson's sole remaining charge against me is 
that OF hypocrisy. The occasion of his preferring this was. 
the refusal of Presbytery to institute an inquiry into the 
sentiments I held, on the ground of common fame. Being 
dissatisfied with that decision, he appealed to the Synod ; in 
which court I defended the course the Presbytery had pursued, 
denied the existence of that common fame which had been 
alleged to exist and to furnish ground of process against me, 
and openly avowed my faith in the Confession. It is in this 
avowal I am said to have acted hypocritically. The doctrines 
I held were as well known then as they are now ; and when I 
spoke of the Confession's containing the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth, my words are to be interpreted by 
the subject on which I was speaking, and are not to be taken 
out of the record and made to apply to something else which 
I was not talking about. The entire system of doctrine con- 
tained in the Confession was not the matter in dispute. The 
discussion had reference only to a few points of doctrine, con- 
cerning which I was charged with holding error. It is an 
irrefragable law of interpretation, that words spoken are to be 
understood in reference only to the matter concerning which 
they were uttered. Now, it was in reference to these particular 
doctrines that I said there had been a time when I could not 



388 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

fully accord with the language of the Confession ; but that 
since I had attended more fully to the subject, and had 
acquired more knowledge of the meaning of the terms em- 
ployed as technics at the time the Confession was adopted, — 
terms now obsolete, but then well understood, — I had become 
convinced that instrument, did contain the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth. I had no such thought as 
applying this language, rigidly, to the whole Confession, and 
every particular it contained; but I meant the remark in refer- 
ence to the doctrines concerning which it was said my sound- 
ness was suspected ; and they are doctrines of vital importance. 
With respect to these, I once more repeat the declaration, 
our Confession teaches the truth, the whole truth, and noth- 
ing but the truth. If, indeed, some of its terms are taken 
in the meaning often attached to them at this day, it speaks 
error ; but, receiving its language in the sense in which it is 
alleged the framers intended, it speaks the very truth. 

Nor did I say this for the sake of making a flourish, and 
producing popular effect ; and had the intercourse between 
myself and my brother Wilson been such as I am sorry to 
think it has not been, — had he felt the warm beatings of my 
heart, while he opened his own to me in return, — he would 
not have suspected me of such a manoeuvre. It has never 
belonged to my character, either here or anywhere else, to 
conceal my feelings and mask my sentiments. I always go 
heart first. But Brother Wilson seems to think that I go 
head first, and sometimes rather recklessly. 

But suppose there is, on close examination, some discrepancy 
between my faith and the Confession, — does it necessarily 
follow that I see and hide it 1 That I have secret meanings, 
which I keep back from the public view ? Is there no such 
thing possible as a mistake ? And if a man thinks he agrees, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



389 



when he really differs, must he be a hypocrite ? Do men 
never make mistakes who are admitted to be honest ? And 
is it not within the range of possibility that the things which 
I hold to be in the Confession actually are in it ; and that it 
is others who differ from it, and not I ? Before Dr. Wilson 
can establish this charge, he must prove two things : first, 
what I said ; and, secondly, that I was not, and could not 
be, honest in saying it. Has he proved them ? Can he prove 
them ? He has not proved them ; but he has publicly made 
the charge ; and I cannot but consider his course in this mat- 
ter as unkind, unbrotherly and invidious. Christian charity 
hopeth all things, and believeth all things ; and it never will 
admit the existence of sin in a brother, and especially a sin so 
odious as that of hypocrisy, till the proof is strong. « 

I have attempted to show that the Confession teaches man's 
natural ability as a free agent, and his moral inability as a 
fallen and lost sinner ; that, on the subjects of original sin, 
including federal representation, the covenant with Adam and 
his posterity, the imputation of sin, the guilt of it, its pun- 
ishment, and the original bias of our nature and will, I have 
taught nothing against the Confession of Faith. On the 
contrary, all that I have written and avowed on these sub- 
jects is in strict accordance with the Confession, with the 
views of the standard writers in the Church, and with the 
Bible. I have shown that my views of regeneration, by the 
special influence of the Spirit, and the instrumentality of truth, 
are expressed fully by the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, 
and by the article concerning effectual calling in the Confes- 
sion. I do not deny, but admit, the interposition of the 
direct power of God, so far as it respects the bodily and nat- 
ural powers of man, so far as these are calculated to impede 
his emancipation from sin. Whatever impediment may arise 
vol. in. 33* 



390 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



from bodily habit or constitution, may be, and no doubt is, 
operated upon directly ; and in these respects I never denied 
or disbelieved that an exertion of God's natural power, so far 
as it respects natural things, may be concerned in the work 
of man's regeneration. This I have always believed. 

One more topic remains, to which I must solicit the atten- 
tion of the Presbytery. Supposing that, in the explanations 
I have made, I shall not have succeeded in convincing all my 
brethren of my entire agreement with the Confession and the 
Bible as they understand both, still the discrepancy is not 
such as is inconsistent with the ends of Church fellowship, 
and an honest subscription to the Confession. 

1. Similar differences have existed from the beginning. 
My position is this, — that a hair's breadth coincidence in 
each particular point never was *made, or understood or in- 
tended to be made, a prerequisite condition of adopting the 
Confession. Nor has it ever been so in practice. The court 
has only to decide on one thing, — whether my differences, if 
I do differ, are such as to vacate the system, to put a sword 
into its vitals. If they are, then I ought to be put out of the 
Church forthwith. But, if they leave the system heart-whole, 
with all its great organization complete and untouched, and 
there is only a philosophical difference with respect to some 
of its parts, then I say, such differences have ever existed in 
the Church, and subscription to the Confession has never 
been understood as implying the contrary. 

2. Differences have been so great that they did, at one 
time, produce a temporary separation between the Synods of 
New York and Philadelphia. These Synods were divided on 
what were then called new measures and new divinity, and 
in the heat of strife they remained apart for nine years ; yet, 

3. Without any change of opinion, or any relinquishment 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



391 



of their respective peculiarities, they came together again, 
wept over all their divisions and alienations, and unkind and 
unbrotherly feelings towards each other, and adopted the 
Confession of Faith, with a declaration that a subscription to 
it implied no more than this. — that the subscriber believed it 
to contain the system of truth taught in the word of God. I 
ask, Did these Synods come together on the ground that the 
Confession contained the truth of God in the sense in which 
each understood it J Did they mean by mutual subscription 
to imply that there was an exact agreement as to their views 
in all things ? Far from it. They came together with better 
religious views and feelings : they had found, by sad experi- 
ence, that where contention is there is every evil work : and 
they mutually agreed to bury the hatchet, and walk together 
under that compromise which alone had first made our 
Church, and under which she had grown up in the enjoyment 
of unparalleled prosperity, and the brightest smiles of Heaven. 
And at this day the question is 3 whether a controversy which 
sundered the Church for nine years, and all whose fruits 
were wormwood and gall, shall be renewed, by making exact 
agreement in all things essential to the adoption of the com- 
mon symbol ; and whether those volcanic fires which have 
once rent the bosom of the Church shall now break forth 
anew, and burn with redoubled fury, desolating in all direc- 
tions all that is good and fair ] 

That there have always existed diversities of sentiment, 
which, if pressed and insisted on. might have furnished 
ground of separation. I can show from various sources. 

Three of the Presidents of Princeton College, namely, 
Edwards, Witherspoon and Davies, held to the doctrine of the 
new school on the subject of man's natural ability. These, it 
is admitted, were some of the most illustrious men that the 



392 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Church has ever been favored to possess ; and yet they held 
that very point for which I am now to be turned out of the 
Church. I might add to the number the name of Samuel 
Stanhope Smith, for he agreed with them in this opinion. 
But I am not now in possession of the documentary proof 
necessary to establish this fact. Were these men charged 
with heresy ? On the contrary, they are to this day eulo- 
gized in the highest strains by the very men who are now the 
champions of Orthodoxy in the Presbyterian Church. What 
man has more exactly or more fully stated the doctrines I 
hold on the subject of natural ability than Dr. Witherspoon, 
and yet who has been more extolled by Dr. Greene ? 

When Mr. Barnes was tried, Dr. Spring declared that he 
was ready to sink or swim with him ; and yet, after that 
declaration, Dr. Spring has beeiu sent by the voice of the 
General Assembly as their public and honored representative 
to the Churches of Europe. What, then, is the matter which 
makes that so bad in one man that he must be excommuni- 
cated, while it is so innocent in another that he may go all 
over the world, representing the Presbyterian Church of the 
United States 1 All that I hold is the old approved New 
England divinity, — it is that, and nothing else. And all the 
attempts which have been made to identify me with the New 
Haven school, as that is represented, are slander. There is 
nothing new in my creed; I learned it under Dr. D wight; 
and my preaching is as sound as was the preaching of that 
illustrious man. If there is anything new in the school which 
has been named after Dr. Taylor, it has not originated or 
changed the faith I hold. I stand for myself, and for the 
Confession of Eaith, and for the Bible ; and all attempts to 
get a fog around another man, and then say that I believe 
the same as he does, are slanders. I protest against this 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 393 

i 

representative heresy ; this plan of dressing somebody else 
with bear-skins, until you have made him an object of fear 
and horror, and then to cry out, " Dr. Beecher believes as 
he does." ! but Dr. Taylor is my friend, and that con- 
firms it. Alas ! is every man a heretic because his friend is 
unhappily falsely accused of heresy ? I confess, without hesi- 
tation, that I don't believe Dr. Taylor is worthy of ecclesias- 
tical disfranchisement. He would be, if he believed as some 
represent him to believe ; but that is quite a different case. 
I have always refused to permit Dr. Taylor's opinions, or 
those of any other man, to be the representatives of mine ; 
but I have as uniformly declared my disbelief of his un- 
soundness in the faith, and have refused to join the cry 
of heresy and denunciation. I hold the peculiar doctrines of 
the New England divinity, as they were taught fifty years 
ago, and respecting which Dr. Greene said that he had no ob- 
jection to them, that he could get along with them very well. 
Nor was this the opinion of Dr. Greene alone. The General 
Assembly must have been of the same mind, for they laid 
down a plan of union and fellowship between the Presbyterian 
Church and the Churches of New England, and for a long 
time their delegates voted in each other's courts ; and to this 
very hour you give these men the right hand of fellowship. 
Will it be said that their doctrines were not known? Their 
doctrines were published to the whole world, and were as well 
known then as they are now ; and it was with a full knowledge 
of these doctrines that those Churches were admitted to corre- 
spondence. Can there be a stronger proof that the sentiments 
of the New England divines were not considered heretical ? 

I stand sheltered, therefore, by deliberate and reiterated 
decisions of the whole Presbyterian Church. I -very well 
remember the commencement of that arrangement. The 



394 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



younger Edwards, President of Union College, was at the 
head of the committee who reported a plan to the General 
Assembly, according to which ruling-elders and committee- 
men were allowed to sit side by side in the General Assembly 
itself. The object of the arrangement was the accommodation 
and comfort of that flood of emigrant piety which came pour- 
ing from New England, and settling down in the midst of 
Presbyterians, in all our new settlements. The distinction, 
which kept brother from brother, on account of a mere dif- 
ference in ecclesiastical connections, weakened both, and 
impaired and often prevented their ability to support the 
Gospel among them. Remove the separating partition, allow 
them to unite, and they would both become strong. When 
the Presbyterian Church received these strangers into a union 
with herself, she perfectly well knew the materials she took, 
and what notions they held ; and it is too late at this time of 
day to turn about and kick those out of the Church who had 
been received into it on a mutual agreement, when no change 
has taken place in their religious belief, and no stain is 
alleged against their moral character. Brethren may say, it 
was very wrong that they were admitted ; it was a thing that 
ought never to have been done. Very well, you have a right 
to your own opinion on that question. But it was done ; 
and now you must restrain your impatience, until it shall 
regularly and in an orderly manner be undone. But you 
are not to enact ex post facto laws, and hang men who came 
into your Church in obedience to laws then existing. Give 
us fair warning ; take back your recognition ; let us out 
unharmed, with as fair a character as we came in ; and then, 
if any of us shall put his head in, catch him if you can. We 
are now in, and we came in on your own invitation. Now, 
does the Church of God invite heretics into her bosom, and 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



395 



admit them to vote in her courts ? Does she hold ministerial 
fellowship with heretics ? Does she place heretical commit- 
tee-men on the same bench with her own orthodox elders ) It 
won't do. It is going too far. The Church has declared that 
what I hold is not heresy : and she has made the declaration in 
various ways, and in almost every possible form. Even the 
last Assembly refused to dissolve the existing alliance, and 
only recommended that no more Churches be formed on that 
plan. But here is Dr. Wilson's own letter. When he wrote 
it, he knew that I had held this doctrine, and he had no evi- 
dence that I had ever denounced it. And here is Dr. Miller's 
letter, who knew my sentiments perfectly, and. nevertheless, 
urged me vehemently to come to Philadelphia, to be a sort of 
pillar there, and, according to his own flattering representa- 
tions, to exert a tranquillizing influence amid all their con- 
tentions, endeavoring to make me believe that I was the man, 
of all others, best calculated to accomplish that great work. 
Does Dr. Miller not know what is heresy 7 Would he per- 
suade me to come and put my hand to the Confession of Faith 
against a good conscience ? Never. I have, therefore, every 
possible proof that in embracing the Confession I have done 
that which the Church and the luminaries of the Church 
thought consistent with a godly sincerity. 

As to Dr. Wilson, he had evidence of my heresy as far 
back as 1817. He had all that time to ponder upon it, and 
yet he united in calling me : and when I came at his call, 
met me with a back stroke. Now, if the Church is convinced 
of her error, and chooses to tighten her cords, and to exclude 
from her communion all who hold the original doctrines of 
the New England divines, free from all alleged admixtures, 
| she certainly has a right to do it. She may, if she chooses, 
j turn out all her New England children, after they have 



396 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



done so much to build her walls, and extend her influence 
and power. But she- has no right to make that a crime 
which she has herself legitimatized, and invited us to do, and 
never turned out any for doing. I will now draw my plea 
toward a close with some miscellaneous remarks. 

This Western world is a great world ; and it needs great 
influences to bring it out from the state of chaos which has 
grown from the jnixed character of its population. It ex- 
hibits to the eye of the philosopher and the Christian an 
entirely new spectacle. Never till now was the scriptural 
prediction so near to a literal fulfilment, that a nation should 
be born in a day. 

It is destined, and that very soon, to be the greatest of the 
nations ; and its chief glory is, that God has established in it 
the principles of his truth, and seems to have selected it as a 
theatre on which to display their happiest effects. Nor is 
there any society of men whom God has favored and honored 
with opportunity to accomplish a greater work than the Pres- 
byterian Church in these United States. This may be said 
with sober truth, and without any invidious comparison. And 
whatsoever she is able to do is most imperiously needed. The 
interests of this whole West, the interests of our nation and 
of the world, the interests of liberty and of religion, demand 
it at her hands. If the Presbyterian Church shall preserve 
harmony within her borders, if her ministers shall proceed 
on the ground of bearing and forbearing, there are no limits 
to the power which this, our beautiful and blessed Church, 
shall be able to send forth, to give strength and glory to the 
land. But, if she shall divide, woe ? s the day ! — it may be 
like that day described in the Revelations, when those who 
have been enriched by her merchandise shall stand at a dis- 
tance, and, beholding her burnings, cry out, Alas ! alas ! that 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



397 



in one day so great riches should come to desolation. Look 
to it ! Brethren, a little precaution, a little kindness, a little 
of that charity which restored the two Synods to each other's 
fellowship, thereby laying the foundation for the Presbyterian 
Church, will carry us safely over this exigency, and make 
us a great and undivided people, terrible to God's adversaries 
as an army with banners. 

But, should you choose an opposite course, to-morrow's sun 
may not have gone down before you may have cut asunder 
the cords of our unity and strength, and broken our Church 
up into fragments. 

Mind is a difficult thing to associate with mind ; and when 
you have got them together, it is a difficult and a delicate thing 
to keep the union unbroken ; it is like broken bones, which 
are commencing to reunite, — one unguarded touch may, in a 
moment, sunder them again ; and that the Devil knows right 
well. Yet it is comparatively easy to keep men together 
who, by long habit, have been accustomed to march shoulder 
to shoulder. It is easy, in comparison, to keep onward with 
the stream of grace and the breathings of the Spirit ; but in 
an evil hour let the bonds of her unity be sundered, and then 
bring the Church together again if you can. Bemember that 
she contains elements of strife such as were never before 
gathered together for the production of evil. Consider that 
there are within these United States notions and feelings 
which lead to nullification. Let that spirit once get into the 
Church, and let it cut off one great section of our communion, 
do you suppose the residue will long hold together ? If, 
indeed, we were only to be separated into two parts or three, 
and then could respectively abide in peace and quiet, the dis- 
memberment might not be an event so deeply to be deplored ; 
nay, it would, perhaps, be advantageous, that the two sections 

vol. in. 84 



398 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



of the Church, between whom some unpleasant bickerings 
have taken place, should, like Abraham and Lot, agree to 
part their flocks, to preserve the general peace. But, alas ! 
it will not be so. Our Churches are all on the Presbyterial 
foundation. The heretical parties mutually denounced have 
it not in their power to say to each other, If you will go to 
the right, then we will go to the left ; or, if you prefer the 
left, then we will depart to the right. They are chained to 
the soil, and must continue to mingle together. We shall 
preach, and you will preach. One will claim the Church, v and 
the other will claim the Church. The contention will grow 
sharper and sharper, the love of property mingling now in 
the strife, till there will be law T suits in all directions. And 
then where will our hearts be ? Where will be the blessed 
influences of the Holy Spirit ? Where will be the work of 
missions ? Where will be our societies for education ? Where 
will be the rising institutions of the West, when all our 
strength, and all our property, and all our influence and 
power, have been wasted in mutual litigations and mutual re- 
vilings ? The devil will utter a scream of joy at a spectacle 
so worthy of his most earnest aspirations. He had begun 
to think that he must take leave of the West, that he must 
abandon his long-cherished hope of getting ultimate posses- 
sion of this great and wide and fertile valley. But the news 
of the Sacramental Host of God's own people falling out 
and fighting with each other will heal his deadly wound, and 
bid all his hopes revive. No, brethren; the Presbyterian 
Church cannot divide, without delaying the hour of her victory 
for more than half a century. If we witness that lamentable 
day, we must live and die in the midst of contentions ; and 
then, when we have sunk amidst the ruins of Christian char- 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



399 



ity and the desolation of all our best hopes, our children may 
come up and finish the bad work which we have begun. 

I have a word to address to you that respects my views of 
the Confession of Faith and discipline of the Presbyterian 
Church. It was asked, in a letter read by Dr. Wilson, who 
it was that got up a new Confession of Faith in Xew Eng- 
land ? I cannot answer the question. But I can tell who 
put down that attempt. The scheme was got up, I believe, 
in Connecticut, and it was brought by the editor of the 
Evangelist before the General Association of Massachusetts, 
and I was the man who made successful opposition to it in 
that Association. I never lifted a hand to revise or improve 
the Confession of Faith : and I never shall do so. while I hold 
the doctrines of natural ability as true, and while I have 
found them useful in doing away the notions of fatality and 
Antinomianism. I have never preached them, except for a 
particular and definite purpose : just as a physician gives 
calomel to a patient in a fever, and when the fever is broken 
then administers bark and tonics. I have not gone on preach- 
ing my own views blindfold. But when I thought I had 
preached the doctrine of natural ability long enough to root 
out the opposite errors, then I have brought up the doctrine 
of moral dependence. And I challenge any one to find an 
Arminian in sentiment in any of those Churches to which it 
has been my privilege to minister. It is impossible to preach 
either the doctrine of free agency or dependence, prominently, 
for any length of time, and not have some men run away with 
one or the other into error. Dr. Wilson, for instance, preaches 
the doctrine of dependence, and there are some who say that 
he is a fatalist : and. if I am not misinformed, there are some 
of his hearers who push his system into absolute Antinomian- 
ism. Is Dr. Wilson to blame for this ? Not at all : unless. 



400 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



indeed, he omits to preach the doctrines which look the other 
way. Both are true, and both must be preached ; and if 
one only is held up to view, the public mind will infallibly 
get a wrong impression. The proportion in which the two 
branches of the system are to be dwelt upon must depend 
upon circumstances. If a man goes where A.ntinomianism is 
prevalent, he must preach the doctrine of natural ability and 
free agency; on the contrary, if he is called to labor where 
Arminianism is rife, he must preach the doctrine of moral 
dependence. Let a man advocate whichever side of the con- 
troversy he chooses, and let him do it ever so judiciously and ' 
wisely, there will always be novices in the Church who will 
run his sentiments into extremes, and will be guilty of much 
extravagance. 

I suppose that my opinions, whfcn rightly understood, are 
very nearly the same as those of Dr. Wilson. Does he sup- 
pose that I am not sensible of the danger that must arise from 
carrying them to extremes ? I am not insensible to it. I 
am as aware of danger as he can be. There will always be 
men who are incapable of discrimination ; men half educated, 
■full of zeal, but destitute of knowledge and prudence. Luther 
was vexed almost to death with such, and so am I, and so is 
Dr. Wilson. We should unite; we are united. While I 
preach natural ability, I do and always will preach moral 
dependence ; and if I find any among my people who carry 
the doctrine to an extreme, I put the sword of the Spirit upon 
them. And if others carry matters to an extreme on the 
opposite side, then I turn about and fight them too. That is 
the stand which every minister is called to take. He is 
placed upon his watch-tower, that he may guard against the 
approach of danger alike in every direction. I am not so 
under the influence of a theory as to make everything yield 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



401 



to that. My people know that I am not always banging 
their ears with the doctrine of natural ability. I- alternate 
the two edges of the sword, and smite as to me seems good ; 
that I may guard my people on either side, and train them 
up to become perfect men in Christ Jesus. I think that in 
some parts of the Church enough has been said on the doc- 
trine of natural ability. I thought so in Boston, and there- 
fore I ceased from pressing those particular views. Dr. 
Woods said that I had rightly understood the type of the 
disease. I had done with the calomel, and it was time for 
the bark. I am aware that Asa Rand has said that the 
change was induced by other considerations. But he mis- 
takes my motives. I hold that we are not to take a whole 
apothecary's shop of medicine and throw it upon the peo- 
ple at once, but that we are to administer it judiciously in 
measure, according to the state of the pulse. A stranger 
comes in, in the second stage of the disease, and sees the 
physician administering tonics, and goes away and makes a 
great outcry, and calls the doctor a quack, because he admin- 
isters bark in a fever. He runs round among his acquaint- 
ance, and very sagely predicts that the patient will die ; he 
goes from house to house, and stirs up an excitement, that he 
may get the ignorant quack drummed out of town. And, 
after all, what does he prove ? Why, that he himself is a 
novice, and a busy-body, propagating slander. There is a 
point where bark is needed, — where laxatives must cease and 
tonics begin, — and it is the office of medical science to ascer- 
tain when that moment has arrived. I am as much afraid of 
having the doctrine of free agency in unskilful hands as Dr. 
Wilson is. I am as much afraid of tearing up the foundations 
of the Confession of Faith as he can be. If he will read my 
thoughts upon creeds, he will find that I am as much attached 
vol. in. 34^ 



402 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



to creeds as he is ; and if he will but consent to bear with me 
and try me for a while, he will find me standing upon the 
Confession of Faith. 

A few thoughts upon creeds in general, and our own Con- 
fession in particular, and I have done. 

Creeds, it is well known, originated early, in the assaults 
of error upon fundamental truth; and were brought pro- 
gressively, as collision and discrimination elicited the truth, 
into the well-defined systems which we now possess. 

The design was, and ever has been, to repel the innova- 
tions of fundamental error, and unite the faithful in Christ 
Jesus in fellowship and action, for the extension of his king- 
dom upon earth. 

The right of men to associate for the maintenance and 
propagation of truth and worship in accordance with their 
understanding of the Bible, expressed in epitomized form, 
cannot be denied. It defrauds none of their rights of con- 
science to worship without creeds, who choose to do so, while 
it is essential to the liberty of conscience of those who desire 
to be associated in this manner ; of which none will be likely 
to complain but those who desire to make their own con- 
science the rule of other men's judgments. The efficacy of 
creeds, to maintain the purity of truth and the unity of the 
Church, has been great. They have not, indeed, been omnip- 
otent in repelling the encroachments of error, or securing 
entirely the unity of the Church ; but it follows not from this 
that they have been ^powerless. The question is not how 
much they have failed to accomplish, but how much they have 
done, and what had been the condition of the Church without 
these memorials of anterior discussions and attainments. It 
must have been to theology like the blotting out of civilization 
by the northern barbarians, or the oblivion of all experience 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



403 



to coming generations, consigning the world in religion and 
science to the impotency of an everlasting infancy. 

Creeds have indeed been the occasion of controversy ; but 
. we might as well deplore the action of the atmosphere, 
because thunder-storms and tornadoes sometimes attend it. 
To the discussions of the Reformation we owe the emancipa- 
tion of the world, the rights of free inquiry, the rights of con- 
science, the supreme authority of the Bible, the principles of 
its exposition, and the great principles of civil and religious 
liberty. 

They were the battle begun, — the conflict of mind with 
brute force, — which will not terminate till the world is free. 
Our own independence is the fruit of it, and the overturnings 
which shake the world, and will shake it till knowledge and 
science cover the earth, are the consummation of that great 
conflict. 

It was the creeds of the Reformation, also, and the zeal of 
holy men for them, which held Protestant nations together 
against the combinations of despotic force, and thus secured 
the permanent action of the great principles which were 
developed ; and they have stood as the unity of the Spirit in 
the bond of peace, to break the force of temptation to apos- 
tasy, — to strengthen in a period of declension the things that 
remain, and to become rallying-points and means of a spiritual 
restoration. The thirty-nine articles have held the Episcopal 
Church through all her periods of declension, adversity, and 
change ; and though once almost a dead letter, are now 
powerfully instrumental in her glorious evangelical resurrec- 
tion. So the standards of Scotland, and Geneva, and Ger- 
many, held their several Churches like so many anchors, 
while the enemy came in like a flood, but are now the power- 
ful means by which God is preparing to bring back their 



404 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



prosperity like the waves of the sea. In New England, 
where, for a little time, the creeds fell into a partial disrepute, 
they are coming into remembrance with renovated power and 
honor. They were, during half her history, established by 
civil and ecclesiastical law ; and through the latter half 
maintained the confidence and affections of the orthodox 
churches to an extent equal to what they have ever received 
anywhere. And though the ministry did not subscribe them 
as the condition of licensure or ordination, they were ex- 
amined closely in respect to the doctrines and experimental 
religion they inculcate ; and no man with Pelagian heresies 
in head, or heart, could any sooner get into the Orthodox 
Congregational Churches of New England than he could enter 
the Presbyterian Church. 

The Shorter Catechism, from generation to generation, has 
been taught in the families of the faithful, and was as uniform 
and almost as venerated an inmate as the Bible. It was the 
knowledge that the doctrines of this Catechism were the stand- 
ard doctrines of the Presbyterian Church which made them 
willing to waive their denominational peculiarities of Church 
order, and pour their floods of pious emigrants, and prayers, 
and contributions, into the Presbyterian Churches at the West, 
without lifting a finger for a Congregational organization, — 
a form so dear to them, that, had it been assailed on their 
own territory, they would have laid life down in its defence. 
They gave up their own Church order, in respect to the West, 
on the ground of evangelical expediency, and their confidence 
in the Presbyterian Church as loving and maintaining the 
same doctrines as themselves. In the twenty-five years that 
I have pleaded the cause of the missions and institutions of the 
West, and in my last and most successful effort, I never 
heard, in a single instance, the objection made, " The money 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



405 



is going out of our own Church, to build up another denomi- 
nation." If it be true that there are any conspiring to change 
the standards of our Church, I have a right to say, from what 
I know, that, whoever the conspirators may be, they are not 
the ministers or Churches of New England, nor those who 
emigrate from New England. 

What we have now chief occasion to guard against is, 
the repetition of the faults of other days, in relying too 
exclusively on the letter of our creeds, to prevent apostasy, 
and perpetuate the purity and power of the Church. 

Experience has evinced that the generations of living men 
will govern the world, in spite of any possible legislation of 
those who have passed away ; and that the only way to per- 
petuate creeds and constitutions is to perpetuate that nurture 
and admonition of the Lord which will make them as accept- 
able to the coming as they are to the existing generation. 

This is the import of the Proverb, that a living dog is 
better than a dead lion. It w T as in this respect that our 
Puritan fathers committed an oversight. The public senti- 
ment of their day w r as so united and efficient, and their law 7 S 
and creeds so well ordered and efficacious, that it seems 
scarcely to have occurred to them that they should not live 
forever, or that the impulse they had given to them would 
not carry them down through all generations. They fell, 
therefore, into an unseemly confidence in the short- metre 
government of the family, Church and commonwealth, by 
power, instead of the kind and winning influence of argument 
and affection, and that religious and moral culture by which 
God is accustomed to fashion aright the heart. The conse- 
quence was, that their creeds and ecclesiastical laws began to 
operate gradually upon necks and hearts unaccustomed to the 
yoke, until at length away went colleges, and creeds, and 



406 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



funds, and Churches, and consecrated property, by the force 
of laws which the living made, in contravention of the sacred 
intentions of the dead. 

There is a lesson which the Church has been slow to learn, 
and yet must learn before her unbroken energies and cordial 
and united action can be thrown upon the world. It is the 
medium between requiring too little, or too much. The mind 
of man is so constructed that exact agreement in everything 
cannot be secured by persuasion or by force. Even the 
Romish Church, with the world in chains and her foot upon 
the neck of nations, could by no force or terror prevent the 
free-born mind from thinking, or compel it to exact unity of 
speculation ; and much less can it be done now, and in our 
nation. Ecclesiastical authority has lost its terrors, and civil 
coercion is unknown, and original investigation is the order 
of the day, — proving all things, to hold fast that which is 
good. The result, in any communion, of attempting a 
government of creeds, verbatim et literatim, would be form- 
ality and debility and endless divisions, on the one hand, 
and fanaticism on the other. The monitory voice of experi- 
ence on this subject is loud and urgent. The stern exactions 
of the English Church drove out the Puritans, whose virtues 
she needed, and whose mildly administered order might have 
benefited them; while the coerced separation produced the 
Revolution, and the eccentric zeal of the Commonwealth, and 
the formality and heresy which attended the reaction. 

A similar course of urgent restriction by creeds, and of 
impatient zeal bursting from it by revivals of extravagance 
and excess, passed over Germany, and prepared the way first 
for dead orthodoxy, and next for rationalism. And in the 
same manner did the heresy of Church and state, in the time 
of Whitfield and the Tenants, produce separations and excess, 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



407 



which made the one fanatical, to the disgrace of revivals for 
half a century, and the other cold and formal, till, in leaning 
away from zeal without knowledge, they fell first into dead 
orthodoxy, which was followed next by the Pelagian and 
Arian and Arminian heresies. 

For many years our own Church has rested from these 
collisions and alternations of ultra zeal. United by the com- 
prehensive, cordial subscription to the doctrines of our Con- 
fession, " as containing the system of doctrines taught in the 
holy Scriptures," implying a bona fide agreement in the fun- 
damental doctrines, as they have been brought out in the con- 
troversies of the Church, and expounded in opposition to 
Arian and Unitarian and Papal and Pelagian errors, but 
never intended or understood as expressing an exact agree- 
ment in speculations or language on any subject. On the 
contrary, those who framed the Westminster Confession and 
Catechisms, and those who adopted them as the bond of union 
to our Church, differed in speculation and phraseology on 
some of the same points that the sons of the Church differ 
about now ; but never, till recently, have they been made the 
ground of formal accusations of heresy, and regular ecclesi- 
astical animadversion. And now the question cannot be 
whether one side or the other shall be expelled from the Church 
as hypocrites and heretics. We came in on both sides with 
the knowledge of these circumstantial varieties of opinion and 
language, and in every form of recognition were made welcome, 
and assured of the protection of the Church : and on neither 
side can we be stigmatized or expelled, without a breach of 
covenant, and the action and injustice of ex post facto laws. 

The only question is. whether we will dissolve partnership, 
or attempt its continuance upon the new conditions of exact 
agreement in speculation and language on every subject, as 



408 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



well as on fundamental doctrine. Whether the exposition of 
the Confession which I have given, on the subject of the 
natural ability of man as a free agent, and his moral inability 
as a totally-depraved sinner; of original sin, as including 
federal liability to the curse of the law, and as operating to 
the production of actual sin, not by force upon the will, or 
any absolute necessity of nature determining it to evil, but by 
an effectual, universal bias to actual sin ; and of regeneration 
as a change of character, produced not by omnipotent action 
alone, but by the immediate and infallible influence of God's 
word and Spirit : whether the exposition of these doctrines, 
sustained by the language of the Confession, and corroborated 
by unbroken exposition from the primitive Church to this day, 
confirmed in the line of the most approved ~ Presbyterian 
expositors, Calvin, Turretin and Witherspoon, and the great 
balance of bibical critics and expositors, shall be reversed and 
stigmatized as heresy ; and the imprimatur of the Church 
be given to the doctrine that man possesses no ability of any 
kind to obey the Gospel,- — that original sin forces and deter- 
mines the will to actual sin, by an absolute necessity of nature, 
— that adult total depravity is involuntary, and the result of 
a constitution acting by the power of a natural and necessary 
cause, — and that regeneration is a change of the natural con- 
stitution, by the direct omnipotence of the Spirit, without any 
influential agency of the word of God ? Such an exposition 
the Church, if it seem good to her, has the power of making ; 
but not the right of giving to her exposition a retrospective 
action, to affect character, and ecclesiastical standing, and 
vested rights. 

But the time hastens, as it would seem, when our Church 
must decide whether the examples of past abortive effort for 
exact identity in speculation and language, with all their 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



409 



mournful consequences, shall be for our warning, or for our 
example ; and whether the coming fifty years shall be years 
of schism, and inipotency, and confusion worse confounded, 
or whether, like a band of brothers, we shall move on under 
the some auspices which hitherto have concentrated in our 
Church the energies of the East, and the West, and the 
North, and. the South, till our victorious efforts, with those of 
other denominations who love our common Lord, shall, under 
his guidance and power, terminate in the universal victories 
of the latter clay. And never was there a moment when a 
little panic of alarm, or impatience of feeling, may turn, for 
good or for evil, the life-giving or destroying waters of such a 
flood down through distant generations. 

The consequences of new and more restricted terms of 
communion are too legible in past experience, and too manifest 
to unerring anticipation, to need labored exposition or fervent 
expostulation. And nothing assuredly could precipitate our 
beloved Church upon the disastrous alternative, but such an 
abandonment of Heaven as we do not believe in ; and such a 
consequent infatuation of alarm and violence of passion, as 
would disregard - alike both argument and expostulation, and 
with closed eye and deafened ear rush upon destruction. An 
event which we cheeringly believe his mercy will avert. 

The means of our preservation are obvious and easy. 

There will be. in a Church so extensive as our own, un- 
avoidably some diversities of doctrinal phraseology in our com- 
munications, — theological provincialisms of men alike warm- 
hearted in their belief in the doctrinal and experimental views 
of our standards. These, as they pass from one department 
of the Church to another, we must not attempt to compel by 
force to change the dialect by which, from maternal lips, the 
truth was breathed into their infant minds, and made effectual 

vol. in. 35 



410 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



in their conversion, and made sacred by the association of 
theological instruction. 

Such sudden unclothings of thought, for new and unac- 
customed habiliments, are impossible. And yet, patience and 
kindness on the part of the presbyteries and fathers of the 
Church will easily secure to all the purposes of edification 
an assimilation which years of discourtesy and contention 
cannot compel. 

We ought, indeed, to speak the same things ; but this 
means not the same words, but the same doctrines. Our 
Confession and Catechisms were intended as concise definitions, 
and not as furnishing the entire vocabulary of words in which 
their doctrines shall be preached. The Bible, itself, does not 
confine us to its own phraseology,.; otherwise all exposition 
and preaching would be superseded by the simple reading of 
the Bible. And yet, where the terms of the Confession are 
grateful, and the language of a strange dialect the occasion of 
misconception and fear, I would not purposely offend or fail 
to edify, by finding out acceptable words ; but, as Paul would 
do, become all things to all men, that if possible I might save 
some. Much less would I speak slightly of our creeds, and 
the phrases which time and association had rendered dear to 
the people of God. But I should expect, in return, in my 
own congregation, the same liberty of speech which I accorded 
to others, and the same deference of courtesy to familiar 
phrases and cherished associations which I practised; and 
with a conciliatory spirit, and a small share of common sense 
and good manners, the Church from end to end might be quiet 
from all agitation on the subject. 

Presbytery now took a recess. After the recess the roll 
was called by the Moderator, and the members in succession 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 



411 



had an opportunity of delivering their sentiments upon the 
case. Several availed themselves of the privilege ; but, in 
most cases, it was waived. The roll being gone through, 
Presbytery took a recess until the afternoon. In the after- 
noon, the members of Presbytery were called upon to vote 
separately on each charge, by saying Sustained, or Not 
Sustained. 

The first charge being then read, the vote upon it stood as 
follows : 

Sustained. — Messrs. Daniel Hayden, Francis Monfort, Ludwell G. 
Gaines, Sayres Gasley, Adrien Aton, J. Burt, William Skillinger, Israel 
Brown, Peter H. Kemper, A. B. Andrews, Andrew Harvey, William 
Cumback. — 12. 

.Yot Sustained. — Messrs. Andrew S. Morison, Thomas J. Biggs, Benj. 
Graves, Artemas Bullard, F. Y. Vail, A. T. Rankin, Augustus Pomroy, 
Thomas Brainerd, George Beecher, Robert Porter, John Archard, Henry 
Hageman, J. G. Burnet, Bryce B. Blair, J. C. Tunis, J. Lyon, W. Carey, 
J. D. Low, S. Hageman, T. Mitchell, W. Owen, A. P. Bradley, Silas 
Woodbury. — 23. 

So the first charge was declared to be not sustained. 
On the second charge the vote stood the same as on the 
first charge. 

As the facts included in the fourth charge were admitted 
by Dr. Beecher, no vote was taken upon it. 

On the third, fifth and sixth charges, the vote stood as 
follows : 

Sustained. — Messrs. Hayden, Monfort, Gaines, Gasley, Aton, Kemper. 
— 6. 

Not Sustained. — Messrs. Morison, Graves, Biggs, Bullard, Vail, 
Rankin, Pomroy, Brainerd, G. Beecher, H. Hageman, S. Hageman, 
Bradley, Porter, Archard, Burnet, Blair, Tunis, Lyon, Carey, Low, 
Mitchell, Owen, W T oodbury, Burt, Skillinger, Brown, Andrew, Harvey, 
Cumback. —29. 



412 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



On motion of Prof. Biggs, the following minute was re- 
corded as the decision of Presbytery in the case : 

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Presbytery, the charges of J. L. 
Wilson, D.D., against Lyman Beecher, D.D., are not sustained, for the 
following reasons : 

I. As to the charge of depraved nature, it appears in evidence that Dr. 
Beecher holds and teaches that in consequence of the fall of Adam, and the 
divinely-appointed connection of all his posterity with him, man is born 
with such a constitutional bias to evil that his first moral act, and all sub- 
sequent moral acts, until regenerated, are invariably sinful ; which bias to 
evil is properly denominated a depraved nature or original sin, as in the 
standards of our Church. 

II. As to the second charge, relating to total depravity and the work of 
the Holy Spirit, Br. Beecher holds and teaches that this depravity is so 
entire, and in such a sense insuperable, that no man is or ever will be 
regenerated without the special influences of the Holy Spirit accompanying 
the word, as expressed in the standards of our Church. — Larger Catechism, 
Question 155, and Scripture proofs. 

On the subject of ability, Dr. Beecher holds and teaches that fallen man 
has all the constitutional powers or faculties to constitute moral agency 
and perfect obligation to obey God, and propriety of rewards and punish- 
ments ; that the will is not by any absolute necessity of nature determined 
to good or evil, according to the Confession of Faith, ch. ix. sec. 1, with 
Scripture proofs. 

At the same time Dr. Beecher holds and teaches that man by the fall is 
morally disabled, being so entirely and obstinately averse from that which 
is good, and dead in sin, so that he is not able to convert himself, or pre- 
pare himself thereunto. 

The extracts from Dr. Beecher's sermons brought to sustain the above 
charges, when taken in their proper connection, and with the limitations 
furnished by the context, do not teach doctrines inconsistent with the Bible 
and standards of our Church. 

III. As to the charges of Perfectionism, slander and hypocrisy, they are 
altogether constructive and inferential, and wholly unsustained by the 
evidence. 



Presbytery then resolved that they do not decide the 



TRIAL BEFORE PRESBYTERY. 413 

m 

amount of censure due to Dr. Wilson, but refer the subject to 
the Synod for their final adjudication. 

Dr. Wilsox gave notice that he should appeal to Synod 
from this decision. 

Messrs. Gaines. Skillinger, Kemper. Cumback. Atom 
Andrew. Harvey, Burt. Brown. Harden. Monfort and 
Gazley, gave notice of their dissent and protest against the 
decision. 

Messrs. Stowe. Rankin and Brainerd. were appointed a 
committee to defend the above decision before the Synod. 

The roll was then called, the minutes read, and Presbytery 
adjourned, after singing and prayer. 

From this decision of the Presbytery an appeal was taken 
to the Synod. The record of the decision of Synod at Day- 
ton, on appeal. I have not. The meeting was unusually full, 
— I suppose at least one hundred members were present, — 
and the decision " Not Sustained" was unanimous, with the 
exception of some ten or twelve votes. 

From this decision of the Synod an appeal was made by 
Dr. Wilson to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church, in its session at Pittsburg ; and after some days of 
that session had passed. Dr. Wilson rose in that Assembly, 
and said, "I came prepared to prosecute the appeal which I 
have brought to this body, but the friends whom I have 
been accustomed to consult, and whose opinion I ought tc 
respect, have advised and requested me to withdraw the 
appeal, saying that it could not be sustained.*' Therefore 
he requested permission to withdraw it. Accordingly per- 
mission wa3 granted, — it is believed unanimously. 

This was done after my Views of Theology had been pub- 
lished and extensively read. 

vol. m. 35* 



REMARKS 



ON AN ARTICLE IN THE PRINCETON REVIEW, ON DR. 
BEECHER'S VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

The review of my Views of Theology in the Biblical 
Repertory is adapted to produce injurious effects far beyond 
its logical ability. It is invested with the general reputation 
and influence of a work which is the leading organ of the 0. 
S. Presbyterian Church. Moreover, it has been deemed 
worthy of republication, for purposes of general circulation, 
among all classes of readers. Yet, logically viewed, it virtu- 
ally concedes that there was very little ground for an assault 
upon me. The two main points which it proposes to discuss 
are my views on Original Sin and on Natural Ability. On 
the first of these, it is obliged to concede, and does fully con- 
cede, that my views are correct. On the second, there is, in 
fact, only the usual difference between us that exists between 
the New England divines and those of Princeton. And 
therefore, in view of facts, I infer that to oppose me fairly 
and logically on this one point did not seem to be enough to 
gain the end in view. It seemed to be deemed necessary 
to destroy by other means the effect of what could not be 
logically refuted. The way to effect this, which was, in fact, 
adopted, was to intermix with the review a series of personal 
assaults on my moral integrity, my capacities as a metaphy- 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 415 



sician, and my trustworthiness as an expositor of Scripture 
and a narrator of historical facts, This series of personal 
assaults is. indeed, the most striking thing in the review, and 
is well adapted to produce in all who read it a feeling of hos- 
tility and of personal contempt towards me. I have no objec- 
tion to a proper exposure and refutation of any errors of 
reasoning, exposition, or historical statement; but the con- 
tinuous and deliberate effort to destroy my reputation and 
influence by a flippant and contemptuous exhibition of merely 
incidental errors, which pervades this review, is a violation of 
the rules of honorable controversy which admits of no just 
excuse. 

If the reviewer and the Biblical Repertory were them- 
selves free from all similar errors, though it would not justify 
such a course, yet it would render it less obviously inconsist- 
ent. But, in fact, there "is not a point on which they have 
undertaken to express their astonishment at my errors, on 
which it is not true, either that their charges of error are 
totally unfounded, or else that they are liable to have retorted 
upon them the charge of similar or even greater errors. 

The point on which the reviewer insists at the greatest 
length is a charge of self-contradiction on the doctrine of 
original sin. On this subject, this was the only possible mode 
of assault ; for the correctness of my views, as set forth in my 
plea before the Synod, he could not and did not deny. 
Nothing, then, remained but to insinuate, as he did, that I 
insincerely changed my professed views, after the trial 
began, in order to escape condemnation, intending to revert to 
them when the danger was past, and to assert that, at all 
events, I have flatly contradicted my former views. For 
proof of this charge, he relies on passages of my sermon on 
Native Depravity, and of my lectures on Scepticism, and of 



116 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



my letter to the editor of the Christian Examiner, in which I 
deny the possibility of a depraved nature, in the strict sense, 
anterior to the exercise of reason, conscience and choice, and 
also deny the transmission of such a nature by descent. I 
also declare that men are not, in the common sense of the 
term, guilty of Adam's sin ; and that all punishable depravity 
is voluntary and personal. 

These passages he contrasts with others, in which, on my 
trial, I declare that I regard original sin as a depraved 
nature, existing before choice, and, of course, as involuntary, 
and as transmitted by generation from Adam ; and that all 
men, including even infants, are guilty of Adam's sin, and 
that penal evils are inflicted on them on account of it. In 
view of the alleged contradictions thus presented, the reviewer 
indulges himself in some very indecent merriment, with refer- 
ence to a pretended visit of mine to New Haven, for the sake 
of assuring myself of my own personal identity, by the aid of 
Dr. Taylor. He also accumulates assertions of " contradic- 
tion palpable and broad," and " discrepancies which no 
sophistry can bridge over." He, no doubt, intended it to be 
a demolition of me, absolute and irretrievable ; for he assailed 
at once both my moral honesty and my intellectual capacity, 
Considering, too, the prejudices of those to whom the review 
wag addressed, nothing could be better adapted to do its work. 
Judged by the standard of partisan morals, which has been too 
often followed in the fierce campaigns of this theological 
warfare, namely, that the end sanctifies the means, such a 
course of conduct may be defensible ; but on no ground of 
truth or honor does it admit of defence. 

The real facts of the case are too plain and obvious to 
admit of a question. The alleged contradiction is a mere 
change in the use of terms, of which I gave full and oft- 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



417 



repeated notice. Understanding by a depraved nature a 
nature sinful and punishable, in the strict sense, anterior to 
voluntary action. I have always denied the existence and 
the possibility of such a nature. Understanding by a 
depraved nature a deteriorated constitution, not deserving 
punishment itself, because involuntary, but nevertheless uni- 
formly leading to sin. I have always admitted and taught 
the existence of a depraved nature, and its descent by ordi- 
nary generation, and on my trial I so stated. Understand- 
ing by the guilt of Adam's sin a just liability to punish- 
ment for it. in the strict sense, as if his moral character and 
deserts had been transferred to us by imputation, I have 
ever denied it. Understanding by it a social liability to 
certain evils that came on Adam, and through him on all his 
posterity, and which are technically, but not in the common 
use of terms, called penal evils, or punishment. I did, on 
my trial, admit that all men are guilty of Adam's sin. 

Is it fair or honorable, upon such grounds, to charge con- 
tradictions on me. and to insinuate that I professed what I 
did not believe, in order to escape condemnation ? 

On this point the Biblical Repertory shall act as judge. 
Providentially, it so happened that in their controversy with 
the Christian Spectator, on the subject of Imputation, in 
the years 1830-1, the •same charge of self-contradiction was 
made against them, on the same point. They had endorsed 
Turretin' s views, and thus laid themselves open to the charge, 
as follows : "We said, the ill desert of one man cannot be 
transferred to another. Turretin says, 1 The ill desert of 
Adam is transferred to his posterity.' Admitted, freely. 
Is not this a direct contradiction ? Not at all. Turretin 
says, on one page. * Imputation of sin does not constitute one 
a sinner ; ; on the very next, 1 The imputation of Adam's 



418 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



sin does constitute all men sinners.' Is there any contradic- 
tion here ? So the £ Protestant' (Prof. Stuart) would say ; but 
there is none. Let language be interpreted, not by the tink- 
ling of the words, but by the fair and universal rules of con- 
struction. Imputation does render a man a sinner in one 
sense, and not in another, — -judicially, not morally. So justi- 
fication renders a man just in the eye of the law, but not 
inherently. How often may the same verbal proposition be, 
with equal propriety, affirmed or denied ! How obvious is it 
that the same man may, at the same time, be pronounced both 
just and unjust, sub diversa ! This is an evil, an 

ambiguity in the sense of terms, which pervades all language, 
and which subjects every writer to the charge of contradict- 
ing himself and everybody else any one may take a fancy to 
place in opposition to him. The word guilt is as ambiguous 
as the word sinner. It is sometimes used in a moral, at 
others in a legal sense ; and so is the word ill desert. We 
used it in the former, Turretin in the latter." 

So, then, at least, in the years 1830-1, the Princeton 
gentlemen knew what were the true principles of judgment 
in any case of alleged contradictions. Then they knew that 
words were ambiguous, and that sinner, guilt, and ill desert, 
and such like words, could be used in two senses ; and that 
verbal contradictions were not, of course, real ones. All this 
they well knew when their own reputation called for a knowl- 
edge of it. How, then, did it happen that, in 1837, when 
these same principles would have defended my reputation and 
moral character, that they were so entirely forgotten ? Why 
did they, at one time, insist that their own language should 
be "interpreted by the fair and universal laws of construc- 
tion," and then, when my interests were at stake, insist on 
interpreting my language by the mere "tinkling of the 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 419 

words " 1 Why did they, at one time, claim for themselves 
the full benefit of the ambiguity of terms, and then utterly 
deny to me any benefit from the same source ? 

There is the less excuse for their course in this matter, in 
view of the fact that, in order to remove all grounds of mis- 
understanding, I expressly stated in my plea that I merely 
changed my use of terms, but not my opinions. What I 
once denied I told them that I still denied ; but, taking certain 
terms in a different sense, I was perfectly willing to express 
my old opinions in a new dress. The facts in the case are 
notorious, and undeniable. 

I do not pretend to deny that I once assumed that interpre- 
tation of the Confession of Faith and of the creeds of the 
Reformers, on imputation, ability, &c, to be true, which was 
maintained by the Triangular or old school divines. So 
interpreted, I do not pretend to deny that I rejected the idea 
of the strict and proper imputation of Adam's sin, or of the 
guilt of it, to his posterity. I denied no less decidedly the 
reality of a nature preceding action which was in the strict 
and proper sense sinful and punishable, and also the descent 
of such a nature from Adam to his posterity. I declared that 
there is no depravity which is not wholly voluntary ; and no 
depravity or guilt, but that which arises from the transgress- 
ion of the law under such circumstances as constitute account- 
ability, and desert of punishment. This I concede that I 
said in the letter, before mentioned, to the editor of the 
• Christian Examiner, and also in other places. I did not 
then enter into an examination of the soundness of that 
interpretation, but assuming, as other New England divines 
had done, the correctness of the old school exposition, I rejected 
it, But, after this, in the years 1830-1, we were taught by 
the Princeton oracles that this was a false interpretation of 



420 VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 

the Presbyterian standards and of the creeds of the Reforma- 
tion ; and that they do not teach that the substance or essence 
of man is sinful, or that such a sinful substance or essence 
descends from Adam to his posterity, or that they are, in the 
common and proper sense, guilty of his sin ; and that guilt 
means simply social liability to punitive evil, which evil also 
is punitive merely in a technical sense, and not as being truly 
and properly a just punishment of sin. By a depraved nature, 
they also teach us, is meant a nature devoid of original 
righteousness, and of divine influences to incline it to good ; 
and, therefore, by- reason of its inherent natural propensities 7 
tending to evil. Taking original sin to denote such a nature, 
I did teach that original sin is involuntary, and that it 
descends from Adam to his posterity by ordinary generation, 
and is properly called native depravity, or an evil nature. 
Taking guilt in the sense just specified, I did profess to 
believe that the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to his pos- 
terity, even to infants before personal accountability ; and that 
the covenant was made, not only with Adam, but with his 
posterity; and that they sinned in him and fell wit2i him in 
this sense, — that their character and liability to ultimate ruin 
were decided by his deed. 

Of these changes in interpretation, and in the use of 
phraseology, I gave repeated and formal notice. Nay, so 
frequently did I advert to these facts, that it was hardly con- 
sistent with good taste in writing ; but I thought it desirable 
and necessary to cut off all pretexts for a misunderstanding of 
my language. But, what can limit and bind the determina- 
tion of a thorough partisan ? After all my care, the reviewer, 
as if I had said nothing of the kind, parades my earlier and 
my later statements on these points, and, regarding merely 
"the tinkling of the words/ 7 charges on me " contradiction 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



421 



palpable and broad." He professes his inability to account 
for this state of facts. He thinks that I must be acute 
enough to see the contradiction, and hopes that I am not 
too proud to own that I did renounce and contradict during 
my trial my former views. He hopes, too, that I was not 
taking refuge in an esoteric sense until the days of my trial 
were over, intending then to revert to my former views. But, 
after suggesting this uncandid and unchristian supposition, 
he leaves his readers to choose for themselves which of the 
alternatives they please. Such, then, is the force of sect- 
arian bigotry, and of a fixed purpose to find occasion against 
me, that it has led to the total disregard, in my case, of the 
most manifest and equitable rules of interpretation, the 
defence of which the Princeton gentlemen are always ready 
to claim in their own behalf. 

The reviewer also tries to prove that I have given two 
contradictory accounts of the object of my sermon on Native 
Depravity. But what are these accounts 1 I said that I 
meant in it to refute the Pelagian notions of native excellence 
in man before regeneration. This, moreover, I said was to 
be effected u by explaining and proving the doctrine of 
total depravity " A part of this explanation and proof con- 
sisted in showing that depravity could not be resolved into an 
involuntary sinful nature before action, nor into divine effi- 
ciency. All this was essential to a proper statement and proof 
of depravity, on which I relied as the means of gaining my 
proposed ends : and I constructed m^ sermon so as to effect 
it, and so stated on my trial. Hereupon, the reviewer, ever 
intent on finding occasion against me, says that this second 
account of the object of my sermon is inconsistent with the 
first. Is it, indeed % If I aim in the sermon to refute Pela- 
gian notions, and if I rely on a proper statement of the doc- 

vol. in. ; 36 



422 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



trine of total depravity as the means, is it not proper at one 
time to state that the sermon was made to attain the first- 
mentioned end, and at another, that it was made in order to 
secure the appropriate means of gaining this end ? What 
must be the prejudice of the mind that tries to manufacture a 
contradiction out of this ! 

In my sermon on Native Depravity, I use the words 
" depraved nature' 7 to denote a fixed character, voluntarily 
formed by the sinner. The reviewer declares that this is an 
abuse of language. " If a 'depraved nature' means actual 
transgression, then black may mean white, and square may 
mean round, and root branch, and language may be thrown 
aside as less explicit than dumb signs." 

The reviewer professes, moreover, on this ground, to be 
unable to understand what I mean, in my exposition of my 
sermon, by "a depraved nature, in reference to actual 
depravity," and insinuates that my interpretation of my own 
language is a mere evasion of its obvious sense. To this I 
reply that it is not improper nor unusual to call a permanent 
and controlling choice, or a habit of choice, from which results 
a permanent moral character, by the term nature. When 
Peter says that by great and precious promises believers 
are made partakers of the divine nature, the reference must 
be to that fixed habit of holy choice and emotion which is of 
the same nature with the holiness of God, and is the result 
of the influence of the promises of the Gospel. The nature 
of the cause decides the nature of the effect. Motives affect 
and change choice and conduct, and not the constitutional 
powers which precede conduct. Nor is this application of 
the term nature at all unusual. Turretin, to illustrate the 
binding force of the divine laws, even in cases of most decided 
moral inability, says, " The intemperate man, who cannot 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 423 



refrain from intoxication, his accustomed course of drinking 
having become his nature, is, nevertheless, bound by the 
laws of sobriety and temperance/*' Locus 10, quest. 4, sec. 
23. So, also, Marias is represented by Sallust as saying, 
"I have spent my life in the discharge of duty, and by the 
force of custom well-doing has become my nature^ (bene- 
facere jam ex consuetudine in naturam vertit), Jugurtha, § 
85. Moreover, this use of the term nature is recognized by 
the best lexicographers. Freuncl, in his Latin Lexicon, as 
translated by Andrews, gives " character " as one definition 
of nature, and refers for illustration to this passage from 
Sallust, and also to the phrase of Quintilian, u facer e sibi 
naturam alicujus rei/ ; — that is, to make a voluntary nature 
in respect to anything good or evil. The same definition in 
substance is also found in Leverett's Latin Lexicon, based on 
the great work of Facciolati and Forcellini. 

Am I not, then, justified by such authorities in my use of 
the word nature? If every sinner, at the beginning of moral 
agency, begins to act under the influence of a sinful con- 
trolling choice, if this becomes continually more fixed and 
habitual, and controls and establishes the other habits of life, 
is not this a voluntary depraved nature, according to the best 
usage of language ? 

Such a nature is sinful in the strictest and most perfect 
sense. Nor can any nature be holy or depraved, in this 
sense, except a voluntary nature. There must be, as I have 
said, understanding, conscience and choice, to render such a 
nature possible. 

Nor is there in such statements concerning a voluntary 
depraved nature any contradiction to other statements, in 
which I affirm that there is in all men a depraved or sinful 
nature anterior to choice, which is the reason why all men 



424 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



uniformly choose wrong. In cases of this kind, such words 
as depraved ', sinful^ &c., are not used in the strict sense, but 
in the more popular and loose sense. A sinful nature in this 
sense is an original constitution which leads to sin. It is 
called sinful with reference to its uniform results, and not 
because it is in itself worthy of punishment. To understand 
all this, nothing is necessary to the Princeton gentlemen, but 
to give me the benefit of the rules of interpretation by which 
they insist that their own language shall be interpreted. 

Of course, I do not say that a depraved nature, in this 
second sense, is impossible, without reason, conscience and 
choice; and, therefore, I do not deny, in my sermon on 
Native Depravity, the doctrine of Original sin, as I elsewhere 
state and explain it. 

The reviewer not only tries thus to produce contempt for 
my character as a metaphysician by accumulating baseless 
charges of self-contradiction and absurdity, but he also 
appeals to theological prejudice to overwhelm me. Because 
I teach that all sin is voluntary, he represents me as 11 lisping 
the very shibboleth of the New Haven school; n and again 
he says, " This is the very language of the New Haven 
school." Did not the reviewer know that this was the 
language of the Hopkinsian school, long before New Haven 
divinity had been heard of?, If so, then why not state the 
truth ? 

The only possible ground of charging error upon me is the 
statement made by me that the Reformers held to physical 
depravity, — that is, that the very substance or essence of the 
soul was depraved, and that sin was a property of every man' 
nature, and was propagated as really as flesh and blood, 
now admit that some do disavow this. But it is yet a contro 
versy whether their language does not fairly teach it. At a 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 425 

events, when I wrote my letter to the Christian Examiner, I 
thought it did, and therefore rejected their yiews so understood. 
But subsequently I adopted the interpretation of their lan- 
guage given by the Princeton divines. If their interpreta- 
tion is correct, then I never rejected the views of the 
Reformers on original sin, as the reviewer charges on me, but 
merely an erroneous interpretation of their views. 

The reviewer also represents me as denying original sin in 
my letter to the Christian Examiner, because I say " that 
there is a connection of some kind between the sin of Adam 
and the universal, voluntary and entire depravity of his pos- 
terity ; so that it is in consequence of Adam's sin that all 
mankind do sin voluntarily, as early as they are capable of 
accountability and moral action." In addition to this, I also 
deny the imputation of Adam's sin, and the transmission of a 
sinful nature, in the strict sense. In view of these facts, the 
reviewer says that I leave nothing but a connection of some 
kind; and that "it is mere quibbling, or something worse, to 
retain the phrase original sin, when everything that could be 
meant by it is rejected." Is it so, indeed? Is a depraved 
nature, in the sense of a nature not strictly sinful, but 
always leading to sin, nothing? Is a social liability to 
inherit such a nature, in consequence of Adam's sin, nothing? 
Is such a connection with Adam's sin nothing ? If I reject 
the descent of a depraved substance, in the strict sense, and 
the strict imputation of Adam's sin, I do no more than the 
Princeton gentlemen themselves. And is it mere quibbling, 
or something worse, for them to retain the phrase original 
sin ? 

It appears, then, that, after all that the reviewer has said 
of " my pitiable plight," and hopeless conflict with the obvious 
meaning of my words, and my wandering mazes of confusion 

vol. in. 36* 



426 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



and nonsense," the simple truth is, that, by his want of 
common candor and fairness in the interpretation of my 
■words, he has left himself in the pitiable plight in which I 
have presented him. In the judgment of all candid men, 
language so disrespectful, so gross, so offensive and so ungen- 
tlemanly, as he has seen fit to use towards me in the course 
of his review, cannot but, in the end, react upon himself. 

I pass now to his strictures on me with reference to the 
subject of Natural Ability. This part of the review occupies 
thirty-five pages ; and yet the real essence of the argument, 
as against my position, is contained in two pages (pp. 192, 
193, Princeton Theol. Essays, vol. II.). As opposed to 
Fatalism, I teach, that, in any given case of choice, man still 
retains the power of contrary choice. This the reviewer 
denies, on the ground that man always must choose according 
to his predominant inclination at any time, and has neither 
the power to choose against it, nor to change it by a direct act 
of will. That in any case a man could have chosen differ- 
ently from what he did, if he had inclined so to do* is all 
the power of contrary choice which he admits. 

The result of this, of course, is, that, on his principles, no 
man, at any time, could have chosen differently from what he 
did. It is not merely true in the case of an inclination to sin 
in depraved man, but also in the case of an inclination to per- 
form holy acts in angels, and, indeed, in all cases whatever of 
voluntary action of any kind, and in all worlds. As he states 
it, it is a universal law of action. But, so stated, facts prove 
it to be untrue. Was there a sinful inclination in holy 
angels before they fell? If not, if all their inclinations 
were holy, then it was impossible for them ever to make a 
sinful choice. But they did. Facts, then, are at war with 
the reviewer's theory. 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



427 



But let us examine it more closely. What does he mean 
by inclination ? In another case he uses desire as synony- 
mous with it, and in another case affections. If, then, for 
example, a sinner is under the controlling influence of strong 
sensual desires or affections, is it true that he cannot choose 
contrary to them ? Has God given to the mind no power of 
choosing, according to reason and conscience, against the 
strongest sensual desires and affections ? 

Is it true that desires, affections, appetites and the like, are 
of the same order as a sense of duty, a consciousness of 
what is honorable and right ] Have not the latter a just 
authority which the first have not ? Is not man conscious of 
it ? Is it not reasonable that man should be made with 
power to respond to this consciousness, by choosing against his 
desires, affections and appetites, however strong, in view of 
justice, honor and right ? 

If not. how can the duty of self-denial ever be inculcated ? 
How can man be called on to crucify the flesh, cut off a right 
hand, pluck out a right eye, take up the cross and follow 
Christ ? What power could a preacher have, in contending 
against the sway of the sinful appetites, desires and affections 
of his hearers, who should tell them that the doctrine that 
they have power to choose, according to conscience, against 
such influences, however strong, is false and heretical ? 

If it should be said, in reply, that, in every case of right 
choice, a man still chooses according to predominant moral 
desires, affections and propensities, I reply that a sense of 
moral obligation is neither a desire, an affection or a propen- 
sity. It is a peculiar state of mind, of entirely another order, 
and is designed to act as a counterpoise of these. Therefore, 
in this region, at least, we find a field for the power of con- 
trary choice. Man can choose either according to his sinful 



428 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



inclinations, desires and affections, or against them, and 
according to his conscience. Moreover, whichever way he 
chooses, he had power to choose, the other way. This, more- 
over, is the most important field of choice, and that with which 
theologians are specially interested ; for it is their great work 
to call on man to follow reason, honor, right and conscience, 
in opposition to sinful inclinations, desires and affections. 

But the reviewer asserts that Edwards and the New 
England divines have taught no such power of contrary 
choice as I maintain, and labors largely to prove it by quo- 
tations from Edwards, pp. 182 — 184. I freely concede that 
Edwards did repudiate such a power of contrary choice as 
was held by the Arminian writers, whom he was opposing. 
This power, as he informs us, assumed indifference in the 
will to motives, and contingency of volitions in the sense of 
chance, and that the will determined each choice by a preced- 
ing act of choice. Any power of contrary choice, resting on 
such a basis, I repudiate as sincerely as Edwards. But did 
Edwards reject the thing that I hold under this name 1 Did 
he hold that in every act of choice whatever there was no 
power of any kind to choose otherwise ? Was this his idea 
of moral inability as compared with natural inability % Did 
he merely hold that men have power to act according to their 
choice, but no power whatever to choose otherwise than they 
do? 

In reply to this, I say, that if language can contradict such 
a theory, Edwards has formally and definitely contradicted it. 
At the dose of sec. 4, Part 1, he says, not of external acts, 
but of acts of the will, and that, too, in cases of moral ina- 
bility, " In these things, to ascribe a non-performance to the 
%oant of power or ability ; is not just ; because the thing 
wanting is not a being able, but a being willing. There are 



REMARKS OX THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



4:29 



faculties of mind, a capacity of nature, and everything else 
sufficient, but a disposition ; nothing is wanting but a 

It is, then, just to say, according to Edwards, that there is 
ability to perform the required acts of will, even in cases 
where sinners disobey, and are, in a moral sense, unable. 
The thing wanting is not ability : there are faculties of mind, 
and a capacity of nature, and everything else sufficient : 
nothing is wanting but willingness. Xow. whether Edwards 
calls this the power of contrary choice or not. it is all that I 
mean by it. and therefore, in the thing, if not in the name, I 
agree with Edwards. 

Once more, the idea of Fatalism, as I reject it. was dis- 
tinctly presented to Edwards, and carefully considered, for he 
had been charged with agreeing with the Fatalism of Lord 
Kaimes. But, after careful thought, he denies the charge. 
In his reply to Lord Kaimes. he quotes him as teaching as 
follows : "All things that fall out in the natural and moral 
world are alike necessary. This inclination and choice is 
unavoidable, caused by the prevailing motive. In this lies 
the necessity of our action, that in such circumstances it was 
impossible we could act otherwise."' Here now Fatalism {just 
as I have described it) is clearly set forth by Lord Kaimes. 
Its essence is a fixed necessity of choosing- as we do, like 
that necessity which exists between natural causes and effects. 
It could not be more clearly presented. What, then, did 
Edwards 'say ?- Did he recognize and sanction it as his doc- 
trine ? Xay, he rejected it. just as explicitly and indignantly 
as I do. In opposition to it. he says. "I have largely 
declared that the connection between antecedent things and 
consequent ones, which takes place with regard to the acts 
of men's wills, which is called moral necessity, is called by 



430 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the name of necessity improperly ; and that all such terms 
as must, cannot, impossible, unable, irresistible, unavoid- 
able, invincible, &c., when applied here, are not applied in 
their proper signification, ^ ^ and that such a necessity as 
attends the acts of rnerts wills is more properly called 
certainty than necessity." 

And do not I teach certainty of moral action as truly as 
Edwards; and does he not reject what I have defined as 
Fatalism as truly as I ? And is there any possible middle- 
ground, between the rejection of such Fatalism as Edwards 
rejects, and the admission of the power of contrary choice as 
I hold it ? I concede that it is not the Arminian idea of 
power to the contrary, but it is all that I have ever held or 
taught, and in it I agree with Edwards. 

Moreover, Edwards was understood by his intimate friends 
and disciples as I have understood him. Who better under- 
stood him than Hopkins, his favorite pupil, and the editor of 
his works? Whilst, then, Hopkins, as the expositor of 
Edwards, clearly asserted the depravity of the sinner, and his 
moral inability to make him a new heart, did he understand 
this as a denial of the sinner's power to choose differently 
from what he did, even to the extent of changing his own 
heart ? Listen to him in reply to the sinner who pleads 
his absolute inability to do his duty as an excuse. 1 1 The un- 
regenerate sinner, who has reformed all ways of external sin, 
and prays to God for a new heart, which he thinks he sin- 
cerely desires, but that it is wholly out of his power to 
change his own heart, — such a one, I say, makes himself in 
a great measure easy in an unregenerate state, while he 
thinks he does all he can. Such a sinner is not under 
genuine, thorough convictions, and never will nor possibly 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



431 



can be. while he believes this representation just." Hop- 
kins' Works, in. 299. 

So. then, according to Hopkins, it is not just to say that a 
sinner cannot change his own heart, or to say that he has done 
all he can until he has changed his own heart. Nay. so 
false are these assertions, that no man who believes them 
either is, or possibly can be. under genuine and thorough 
conviction of sin. The truth, then, is, according to Hopkins, 
that a sinner can change his own heart, and has never done 
all he can till he has done it. And is not this the power of 
contrary choice ) At all events, it is all that I mean by it, or 
ever did. Nothing that I have ever said is stronger or more 
unguarded than this statement of Hopkins. It is not neces- 
sary for me to multiply such quotations. I will only say, 
that I see no rational course, after rejecting that Fatalism 
which Lord Kaimes has set forth, and which Edwards and 
all his followers have always rejected, except to take the 
ground of the power of contrary choice, — not, indeed, as the 
Arminians held it, whom Edwards opposed, but as I have 
developed it, and set it forth. 

But the reviewer once more attempts to set me in opposi- 
tion, not only to Edwards, but to all Calvinistic writers, on 
account of my use of the terms liberty, freedom, &c, in con- 
nection with the will. This is worthy of particular notice, on 
account of his arrogant assumption of extended and accurate 
knowledge on the subject, and his efforts, by detecting inci- 
dental errors in me in questions of history and interpreta- 
tion, to destroy my influence as a writer. I know of no case, 
however, .in which a writer of such magnificent pretences has 
involved himself in such a maze of gross and inexcusable 
errors. 

He takes the ground, then, " that we derive our notion of 



432 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



freedom from the dependency of our actions upon our voli- 
tions. If, when we will a particular act, the act follows, we 
are free." — Prin. Theol. Essays, vol. II. p. 187. Accord- 
ingly, he defines a free agent as "one who is not hindered 
by any extrinsic impediment from acting according to his own 
will." — p. 187. He then asks, "How can we raise the 
question whether the will itself be free?" and again he 
asserts u the question whether the will itself is free is non- 
sense." — p. 184. When he says that this use of terms is 
sanctioned by Edwards, he is clearly correct. But when he 
proceeds to say that in it all Calvinistic writers agree (p. 184, 
and 187), I am amazed at either his ignorance or his 
audacity. But so it is. Accordingly he proceeds to censure 
me for saying that man is free to choose, with power of con- 
trary choice, and for inquiring whether choice is free, and 
whether man in choosing is coerced or free, in, order to 
decide the question of responsibility. In short, he again and 
again denies the propriety of applying the terms free, liberty, 
freedom, &c, to the will or to its acts, or to man in reference 
to the power of willing, and confines them solely to man in 
view of the connection between volitions and their consequent 
actions ; and most magisterially asserts that all Calvinistic 
vjriters do the same. 

And yet this same reviewer was at this very time a pro- 
fessor in the Theological Seminary of Princeton, and a sworn 
defender of the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian 
Church. Let it now be well considered that in the ninth 
chapter of that same Confession we are taught as follows : 
"God hath endued the will of man with that natural 
liberty that it is neither forced nor by any absolute neces- 
sity of nature determined to good or evil." Astonishing ! 
The will endued by God with liberty ! Were the West- 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 433 

minster Assembly of Divines, then, no Calvinists? Have 
they plunged headlong into nonsense ? Or has the reviewer, 
through a fixed purpose to censure me, plunged himself into 
a most humiliating blunder, for a man of so much pretension 
and occupying such a station in the Church ? 

Nor is this all. The Princeton reviewers, in whose name 
he was now speaking, are, by the same sentence, no less 
unceremoniously turned out of the lists of Calvinistic writers. 
For, in an article on the power of contrary choice, and in an 
express statement of the point in question, they say (Essays, 
vol. I. p. 251), "Neither is the question whether the will 
has liberty of choice : that is, in every act of choice acts 
freely, according to the pleasure of the agent, and not by 
constraint or compulsion. This is agreed on all hands." 
So, then, it is agreed on all hands that the will has liberty 
of choice * and if our learned reviewer is to be believed, the 
whole Church, including all the Princeton reviewers, except 
himself, are no Calvinists, and are as deeply plunged in 
nonsense, in this particular, as I myself. 

Nor will even old Calvin himself, we fear, escape any 
better than we ; for (B r. c. 15, § 8) he ascribes to Adam 
f a free choice of good and evil ; " and, as opposed to com- 
pulsion and physical necessity, he asserts the existence of 
free will in all ages. — B. n. c. 2, § 7, and elsewhere. 
Nor is this all. We have the authority of Calvin, as well as 
of history, for the assertion, that all preceding writers, — that is, 
the scholastic divines and the fathers, — not excepting Augus- 
tine, applied the terms, free, freedom, &c, to the will and its 
acts, even as I have done. And it lies upon the very face of 
Turretine that he so applies the terms. He says that it is a 
calumny when the Papists say " that they (the Reformed) 
reject both the name and the reality of free w ill ; " for, says 

vol. in. 37 



434 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



he, u we shall soon prove that we establish free wiZ/much more 
correctly than our adversaries." Again he says, " In order 
that choice may be free, it ought to be exempt from com- 
pulsion and physical necessity." This essential liberty of 
choice, he says, u is in all men, always, in every condition." 
— See Turretine, L. 10, q. 1 — 4. 

How happens it, then, that the reviewer has, with all his 
pretensions, fallen into such a wilderness of blunders ? It 
would seem to be from the fact that he was misled by sup- 
posing that Edwards, Collins and Hobbs (whom it seems he 
had just read for the occasion, at -least in part), were fair 
representatives of the whole Calvinistic world in their use of 
the words free, freedom, &c, as applied to moral agents 
and the will. Nothing can be further from the fact. Not 
one of Edwards' New England followers, so far as I recollect, 
followed him in his definition of liberty. Hopkins • said that 
freedom consisted in voluntary action itself, and not in the 
connection between volitions and the acts dependent on them. 
Edwards the younger and West said that liberty was not 
voluntary action itself, but a quality of it, — that is, its ex- 
emption from compulsion and physical necessity. President 
Day, even in a professed defence of Edwards, regards his 
definition of liberty as unsatisfactory, and apparently evasive. 

But the fact is, that Edwards, though he wrongly defined 
liberty, yet, as I have shown, held to the facts in w T hich 
liberty of will consists as I hold it ; that is, he denied fatal 
and physical necessity of choice, and held to a power to 
choose right, but refused to apply to it the name of liberty. 
I do apply to it the name liberty, and that is the difference 
between us. It is a difference in the use of terms. More- 
over, in my use of terms, the Confession of Faith, the Prince- 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



435 



ton Review and almost the whole Calvinistic world, are with 
me, in this particular, and against Edwards and the reviewer. 

Moreover, when Edwards engaged in the work of preaching, 
forgetful of theories, he used the word just as I do. For ex- 
ample, in his sermon on indecision, from 1 Kings, 18 : 21 > 
" How long halt ye,' 7 &c, he thus sets forth the unreason- 
ableness of indecision : " God has made us reasonable 
creatures, and capable of rationally determining for our- 
selves. * * God hath made us capable of making a wise 
choice for ourselves as to the life we shall choose to lead. * * 
God also puts into our hands a happy opportunity to deter- 
mine for ourselves. What better opportunity can a man 
desire to consult his own interest than to have liberty to 
choose his own portion?" Here, then, we have not merely 
power to act as we choose, but power to determine and liberty 
to choose, and to choose aright, on the great question of eter- 
nal life. 

In proof of this, Edwards appeals to the same texts on 
which I have relied; for example, Deut. 30: 19, — " I call 
heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have 
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore 
choose life, that thou and thy seed after thee may live." He 
also refers to Ezek. 18 : 31, 32, and 33 : 11. 

Indeed, even the reviewer, when he happens to have a 
little changed his point of vision, reports certain facts of his 
own mental consciousness, which the Princeton reviewers 
declare to be the highest possible form of the freedom of the 
will He tells us that even he is " conscious of a power 
which we possess to will as we please." Notice; not a 
power to act as we will, which is his old definition of free- 
dom, but to will as we please. 

This means, as our previous exposition of the reviewer's 



436 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



theory shows, that man has power to will according to his 
predominant inclination, or appetite, or desire; using the 
words " as we please, " not to denote "as we choose," in the 
Edwardean sense, but as our desires, appetites and sense of 
pleasure are. On this the Princeton reviewers say, in 
another place, "If, then, we can will as we please, we have 
all conceivable liberty and power, so far as the will is con- 
cerned." And again, " There can be no necessity in volition ; 
it is liberty itself" This view of volition, as liberty itself, is 
exactly the ground of Hopkins. We do not endorse the doc- 
trine, but merely show once more that the application of the 
terms free, freedom, liberty, &c, to the will and its acts, 
which the reviewer condemns in me, is abundantly authorized 
by his fellow-reviewers, as well as the New England divines ; 
and that it is properly applied to his own reported conscious- 
ness, and so applied presents it as in their view the highest 
form of the freedom of the will. We, however, can 
conceive of a form of freedom of the will still higher than this ; 
that is, the power to choose, not only according to our pleas- 
ure, but also according to truth, right and duty, even 
against our pleasure, — that is, against the demands of any 
appetites, passions or propensities, however strong. 

The reviewer, however, quotes against me a passage from 
the treatise on Original Sin, in which Edwards repudiates the 
idea which he ascribed to Dr. John Taylor, "that there is a 
sufficient power and ability in all mankind to do all their 
duty, and wholly to avoid sin." And again, that there is 
"in their own natural ability sufficient means to avoid sin, 
and to be perfectly free from it." To this Edwards says, 
"If the means are sufficient, then there is no need of more, 
and therefore there is no need of Christ's dying in order to 
it." On this the reviewer asserts that my opinions and those 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



437 



of J. Taylor are identical ; that no jugglery upon his words 
can separate between them ; that Edwards repudiates such 
views with abhorrence, and yet, that the sanction of his 
venerable name is invoked for them. — p. 181, 182. 

To this T reply, no jugglery is needed, but merely candor 
and common sense. The whole question turns on the sense 
attached by Edwards to the word " sufficient." If by " suf- 
ficient provision" and '•' sufficient means" he understood 
provision and means which do in fact avail, either generally 
or in any case actually, to deliver men from sin, and keep 
them perfectly holy, so that in practice it is safe to rely on 
them as ever or commonly securing these results, then I 
repudiate the doctrine with as much abhorrence as Edwards. 
But if by " sufficient means " is meant that natural ability to 
choose right which averts Fatalism and creates obligation, 
then I do not repudiate the doctrine ; and if any one will 
insist that Edwards does (as the reviewer alleges), he merely 
involves him in self-contradiction ; for in the passage already 
quoted he says, " The thing wanting is not a being able, 
but a being willing. There are faculties of mind, and a 
capacity of nature, and everything else sufficient, but a 
disposition. Nothing is wanting but a will." On these 
grounds he says, and, be it well considered, concerning the 
acts of the toill, " To ascribe a non-performance to the want 
of power or ability is not just." 

Once more, the reviewer censures me for not always 
attaching the epithet " natural" to the word ability, as if 
by the omission I taught a kind of ability contrary to the 
regular New England doctrine. For example, when I say, 
" the moment the ability of obedience ceases, the commission 
of sin becomes impossible," or when I assert "the full ability 
of every sinner to comply with the terms of salvation; " or, 

vol. in. 37 



438 



VIEWS 0E THEOLOGY. 



again, u that men are free agents, possessed of such faculties, 
and placed in such circumstances, as render it practicable for 
them to do whatever God requires ; " he declares that all this 
is an improvement on the regular New England doctrine of 
Natural Ability, — pp. 179—181. 

To this I reply, the regular New England doctrine is not 
Fatalism concealed under the phrase u natural ability," 
meaning thereby merely power to do as we will, whilst, at the 
same time, we are unable, in every sense, to will otherwise 
than we do. This is the very Fatalism of Lord Kaimes, 
which Edwards indignantly repudiated as utterly at war with 
his doctrine. In opposition to this, Hopkins, too, as we have 
seen, emphatically declared that a sinner can change his 
own hearty and has never done all that he can, until he has 
obeyed the command so to do. In all my statements above 
quoted, I mean no more than this. Nor is it needful, after 
once and again defining my use of terms, on all occasions to 
introduce the word " natural" to qualify the ability asserted. 
Neither Edwards nor Hopkins always does thus, as may be 
seen by the passages recently quoted from them. 

In addition to this, if any shall so far abuse the phrase 
1 Natural ability" as to make it a deceitful veil of Fatalism, 
using it as implying no power to choose right, but only a 
power to act right if we first choose right, whilst we are in 
every sense unable to choose right, then it is high time to 
expose such a delusive jugglery on words, and to say that 
by the ability of which we speak we mean a real power to 
choose as God commands, and not a verbal and delusive 
shadow of ability, which is at heart nothing but disguised 
Fatalism. 

The mode which the reviewer adopts, in order to neutralize 
the power of my quotations from the fathers and other theo- 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 489 



logical writers, deserves notice and reprobation. He asserts 
that when I quote authorities I shift the question to this, — Has 
man power to act according to his will 3 and accumulate 
quotations to prove this point ; and then shift back again, and 
represent them as proving that man has power freely to 
choose, instead of power to act according to his choice. " By 
thus interchanging phrases of different import, and shifting 
the question at the proper turn, he is enabled to array on his 
side a formidable list of authorities, from the days of the 
fathers down to the present generation." "The inquiry 
raised is, whether choice is free, except when some 
authority is to be introduced.''' — p. 186. 

Now, to this I reply, that either the reviewer had read my 
authorities, or he had not. If he had, he was dishonest. If 
he had not, then he was inexcusably ignorant. For the facts, 
as they lie upon the very face of my quotations, are obviously 
and irremediably at war with his assertion. Take one notori- 
ous case. I appeal, as just stated, to the Confession of Faith 
(chap. ix. § 1) to prove that the will of man is endowed 
by God with ■ liberty in its determinations, and that it is 
neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature deter- 
mined, to good or evil. Is this a shifting of the question ? 
Does this merely answer the question whether man can act 
as he wills, and not whether his will is free ? And is the 
Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church no authority 
to a professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton ? 
Are the Westminster divines no authority to Presbyterians ? 

It is, indeed, quite a remarkable fact, that, although the 
Confession of Faith was the very standard of trial, and 
although I appealed to it again and again, and claimed that it 
was on my side, and declared explicitly that its statements on 
the liberty of the will contained exactly my doctrine of natu- 



440 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



ral ability , yet on this most vital point of all, the reviewer 
makes no effort whatever to answer me. He is here as silent 
as the grave concerning the Confession of Faith. Why is 
this ? Did he really forget that this was the very standard 
of judgment ? Did he forget that on the point at issue it was 
decisive ? Did he forget that I had appealed to it again and 
again? Did he forget that in express terms it sustains 
both my language and my views ? Did he forget all this, 
and then, in pure ignorance, charge me with shifting the ques- 
tion, so that the testimony of the Westminster divines does 
not meet the point, — Is the will free ? If he did all this in 
pure ignorance, then the public will judge how fit he was, in 
point of knowledge, to w T rite a proper review of such discus- 
sions. If he did not do it in ignorance, then the public will 
judge what shall be thought of the moral integrity of a 
man who could knowingly be guilty of such an act. More- 
over, they will judge how far it is consistent with common 
honesty for those on whom the responsibility now rests for 
the statements of the Princeton Review, if there are any 
such, to perpetuate this and other like charges, uncorrected, 
to all coming ages. 

A similar course of remark might be repeated, with refer- 
ence to authority after authority. They assert the freedom 
of the will, or the power of choosing otherwise than we do, as 
opposed to Fatalism, with wonderful explicitness. For ex- 
ample, Justin Martyr says, " If mankind had not the power, 
by free will, to avoid what is disgraceful and to choose what 
is good, they would not be responsible for their actions." Is 
this merely a power to act as we choose ? Is it not a power 
freely to choose right or wrong ? 

Irenaeus places the ground of responsibility in "free will," 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 441 



and represents God as approving men for " choosing and 
persevering in that which is good." 

Clement of Alexandria says that God has given us "free 
and sovereign power, not having allowed what we choose or 
what we avoid to be subject to a slavish necessity." 

Tertullian says, " I find that man was formed by God with 
free will, and with power over himself, observing in him 
no image or likeness to God more than in this respect." 
" Transgression would not have been threatened with death, 
if the contempt of the law were not placed to the account of 
man's free will." 

Origen avows and defends free will, and says, " Every one 
has the power of choosing good and choosing evil." 

Cyprian asserts, — " Man, being left to his own liberty and 
endowed with free will, seeks for himself death or salva- 
tion." 

Eusebius says, " Every rational soul has naturally a good 
free will, formed for the choice of what is good. ^ ^ When 
a person, who had the power of choosing what is good, did 
not choose it, but voluntarily turned away from what is best, 
pursuing what is worst, what room for escape could be left 
him?" 

Jerome says, " That we possess free will, and can turn it 
either to a good or bad purpose, according to our determina- 
tion, is owing to his grace, who made us after his image and 
likeness." 

Augustine. — "Freewill is given to the soul. * ^ ^ 
Every one has it in his will, either to choose those things that 
are good, and be a good tree, or to choose those things that 
are bad, and be a bad tree." 

Luther. — " The will does what it does, whether good or 
bad, at perfect liberty." 



442 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



Dr. Woods says, " I grant that man has a power of choos- 
ing between different courses, and of yielding to either of two 
opposite motives." 

Such is a small specimen of the authorities which I intro- 
duced. Do they not meet the question, Is choice free as 
opposed to Fatalism 1 Yet, either after reading them, or else 
without reading them, the reviewer has dared to say, " The 
inquiry raised is, whether choice is free, except when some 

AUTHORITY IS TO BE INTRODUCED ! " 

It is, indeed, true that one of my authorities (Howe) is 
liable to exception, as teaching merely that man can act as 
he will. But of the great mass of them it is not true. They 
meet the true question, whether, as opposed to Fatalism, it is 
true that man has free will, — that is, has the natural power 
of choosing otherwise than he does, — and they decide that he 
has. 

By a similar false assertion, the reviewer tries to destroy 
the influence of my argument from the Bible. — p. 195. 
There is, however, no need of further reply. He takes good 
care, as before, to rest in mere assertion. He gives his 
readers no opportunity to judge for themselves. If his pur- 
pose, was, not to aid in a candid inquiry what is the truth, but 
merely to destroy the influence of my arguments, for party 
purposes, he took perhaps the most effectual course to gain 
such an end. 

But now, if anyone should say, with the reviewer (p. 186), 
" Liberty must be the attribute of an agent, and not of a 
faculty." But is the will an independent agent, or a 
faculty ? And is it proper, then, to say that a faculty, or 
its action, is free, or has freedom 1 Is it not the man 
who is free ? I answer, Yes, it is the man who is free. And 
when I, and other Calvinists, say the will is * free, we mean 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



443 



that the man who wills is free in willing, and, in the words 
of the Confession, " is not compelled, or determined by any 
absolute necessity of nature, to good or evil." So, also, when 
I- say choice is free, I mean that the man who chooses is free 
in his choice. But what then ? The question still is, Is 
man free in toilling, or only in acting as he toills ? Presi- 
dent Day, in reply to this allegation, that the will is not an 
agent, and that liberty properly belongs to an agent, and not 
to a faculty, very correctly says, " Still it may be proper to 
inquire whether the man is free in his willing, as well as in 
his external aotions. Is he possessed of freedom in his voli- 
tions, as well as in his bodily movements?" — Exam, of 
Edwards, p. 81. 

But though, in fact, it is the man who is free, it is not unusual 
or improper to express the idea that man is free in willing 
by saying that the will is free, or that choice is free. Noth- 
ing is more common, even in the highest authorities, than to 
speak of faculties as if they were agents. Edwards says, 
" That which the will prefers, to that, all things considered, 
it preponderates and inclines.'''' Yet elsewhere he says, 
" Actions are to be ascribed to agents, and not properly to the 
powers of agents." Yet who, in the first case, would sup- 
pose that Edwards did not know that the will was a faculty, 
md not an agent, although he ascribed actions to it ? Who, 
too, would ever misunderstand him 1 After a man has once 
declared his belief in the revolution of the earth on its axis, 
must he never again say that the sun rises and sets, for fear 
of some hypercritical charge of error 1 So, after a full state- 
ment that the real fact is that it is the man who is free in 
choosing, must we never again say the will is free, or choice 
is free, lest some new-fledged metaphysician should again 
pounce upon us Calvinists, not excepting the Princeton 



444 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



divineSj with charges of inconsistent and inaccurate use of 
language ? 

I make these general remarks as an answer to a large part 
of all the reviewer's charges on me of a confused and inac- 
curate use of language. Let him be as candid towards me as 
he would be towards Edwards, or Locke, or the Westminster 
divines, or the Princeton reviewers themselves, and most of 
his charges will at once disappear. For example, even if I 
do sometimes speak of "the natural inability of the will," or 
" the natural power of the will," the phrases are not, as the 
reviewer alleges, " destitute of meaning,'? or "*absurd." — p. 
174. They denote, as before, the natural inability or power 
of the man in whom the will is. So, too, the expression, 
"the will is under no such necessity as destroys its own 
power of choice" (p. 174), is not devoid of an obvious and 
proper meaning. Let it be interpreted on the same princi- 
ples which are applied to the language of Edwards or the 
Westminster divines, in the cases already referred to, and it 
means 1 i the man who wills is under no such necessity as 
destroys his own power of choice." If this, as the reviewer 
tells us, is a " vague and slipshod use of terms" (p. 175), 
then let the Princeton reviewers look well to their own lan- 
guage and example ; for they say, "All will admit that the 
natural faculty of id ill exerts the choice" — Vol. I. p. 255. 
And so repeatedly, in other instances, they use language just 
as I do. 

In one instance the reviewer takes advantage of a captious 
interpretation of terms, or of the condensation of my style in 
certain passages, to make out the charge of a vagueness in 
the use of the terms cause and effect > which he says is 
"remarkable, even in Dr. Beecher." — p. 172. I will state 
the passages, and, where necessary, restore the unexpressed 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 445 



links of thought, as my sufficient defence against his 
charge. 

"The supposition of accountability for choice, coerced by 
natural necessity, is contrary to the nature of things, as God 
has constituted them. The relation of cause and effect per- 
vades the universe. The natural world is full of it. It is 
the basis of all science, and all intellectual operation, with 
respect to mind. Can the intellect be annihilated, and think- 
ing go on ] No more can the power of choice be annihilated, 
and free agency remain." 

Here the reviewer suppresses what follows to complete the 
statement, and charges me with asserting that free agency, 
taken as a capacity, is the effect of the power of choice. But 
I do not say this ; I merely say that it cannot exist without 
the power of choice, and then proceed to state what other 
powers are necessary to constitute free agency ; and then 
assert that if these do not exist, it is not just to demand 
voluntary obedience to the law, since this would be demand- 
ing an effect without a cause. In this case free choice is the 
effect, and the powers that constitute free agency are the 
cause. Is this vague, or obscure ? 

Again, I say, " The supposition of continued responsibility, 
after all the powers of causation (that is, as to choice) are gone, 
is contrary to the common sense and intuitive perception of all 
mankind. On the subject of moral obligation (as to choice), 
all men can see and do see that there can be no effect without 
a cause (and therefore no obligation to choose right without a 
power so to choose). That nothing cannot produce something is 
an intuitive perception, and you cannot help it. This is the 
basis of that illustrious demonstration by which you prove the 
being of a God." Here he charges me with improperly 
asserting that responsibility, or moral obligation, is an effect 

vol. in. 88 



446 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



of the power of choice ; whereas my language, when the obvi- 
ous links of thought are fairly supplied, only means that 
responsibility cannot exist without the power of choice. 

Again I say, " Material causes, while upheld by Heaven, 
are adequate to their proper effects ; and the mind of man, 
though fallen, is, while upheld, a cause (of free choice) suffi- 
cient, in respect to the possibility of obedience, to create infi- 
nite obligation (to obey)." Here he represents me as 
improperly asserting that the mind of man is a cause of the 
possibility of obedience and of infinite obligation ; whereas the 
whole train of thought plainly shows that I regarded the mind 
of man as a sufficient cause of choice, and on that ground 
giving rise to infinite obligation to obey, as appears from 
restoring the obvious and proper links of thought. 

Upon this array of particulars he then founds the charge, 
which I have proved to be false, that I teach that the will or 
mind of man is, in the proper sense, a cause, not of free 
choice, but of free agency, viewed as a capacity, and of 
responsibility, and of the possibility of obedience, and of 
infinite obligation, — things unlike in nature, and which, 
properly speaking, are not effects at all. 

He then, with affected forbearance, says, " Respect for Dr. 
Beecher restrains us from employing the only becoming and 
adequate mode of exposing such argumentation as this." 
Nevertheless he assures us that it must leave " its dispar- 
aging mark on me," as a reasoner and a divine. Nay, he 
makes it an occasion of an ungentlemanlike and undignified 
sneer at me, for having once said to Dr. Porter that my 
method of philosophizing was the Baconian. 

I would not enter into such unwelcome details, if it were not 
for the fact that the main effect of the review depends upon 
an accumulation of such things. " No one," says the 



REMARKS OX THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



447 



reviewer. " who reads the extracts we have given, or still less 
if he reads the treatise from which they are taken, will 
wonder that Dr. Beecher should have felt it necessary to in- 
form Dr. Porter, and through him the public at large, that 
his method of philosophizing was the Baconian." What is 
this but an effort to neutralize my whole argument in 
advance, even before attempting fairly to meet my reasoning, 
and that by a sneer based upon a captious and unfair inter- 
pretation of my language ? Nor are such things without 
great effect. In partisan minds, prepared for their influence, 
they immediately beget a spirit of insolent contempt, and a 
prejudice before argument, upon which no reasoning, however 
fair, can exert any power. To produce such effects, and thus 
to accomplish partisan ends, I know of nothing better adapted 
than this review, taken as a whole. . Therefore it cannot be 
effectually answered until I have shown what is the secret 
of its malignant power, at least by a few examples. 

In another case, merely to illustrate the absurdities of Fatal- 
ism. I supposed choice to be produced by wheels and water- 
power, but did not say that I regarded it as possible. In 
view of this, he contemptuously says, "Dr. Beecher is the 
only writer we have ever met with who seemed to suppose 
that the will could be moved by water-power, or propelled by 
steam, " and represents me as gravely attempting to prove 
u that man is not accountable for those of his volitions that 
are worked out of him by water-power ; ,/ " just as if I had 
expressed a belief that there were or could be any such voli- 
tions ! Xo doubt such things will have, on many minds, the 
designed effect. But is this the way to represent a Christian 
brother, in candor and in truth ? 

In a very few instances, his verbal criticisms were well 
founded. In such cases, I have availed myself of his strict- 



448 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



ures, however unfriendly, to render my use of terms more 
clear and precise. But, wherever I have neglected his criti- 
cisms, I regard them as obviously unjust, even if I make no 
reply. 

In one case he exposes an error of interpretation caused 
by relying solely on the English version of Jer. 7 : 10, — " We 
are delivered to do these abominations." Here I erroneously 
took the word " delivered " in the sense "given up," or 
"abandoned." If the reviewer had, for the sake of the 
truth and in a friendly spirit, pointed out this, or any other 
error, I would have received it with gratitude. But this was 
not his end or spirit. He avowedly exposed it to " show how 
little reliance is to be placed on Dr. Beecher as an interpreter 
of Scripture." Thus he draws a universal inference of in- 
competency from a single error ; just as if incidental errors 
of interpretation were not so common that few, if any, leading 
divines can be pointed out who are entirely free from them. 
Certainly, Edwards, Turretin and Calvin, were very far from 
such freedom. I refer to this because it illustrates the 
general drift of the review ; that is, in every possible way to 
destroy my character and influence as a logician, an inter- 
preter and a divine. 

For a similar purpose, he severely scrutinizes my list of 
Fatalists, for the sake, as he distinctly avows, "of showing 
how far it is safe to trust Dr. Beecher's accuracy in matters 
of history." He has detected, I concede, one or two errors. 
But he has himself been guilty of more than he has detected 
in me, notwithstanding all his insolence and sarcasm. For 
example, I speak of the Stoics as Fatalists. He at once turns 
to Dugald Stewart, and finds in him a reference to the first 
sentence of the Enchiridion of Epictetus as a proof that they 
held to free will. Next, either by his own blunder, or by 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 449 



that of the printer, this is learnedly set forth as the first 
"instance" in the Enchiridion of Epictetus, but it is not 
quoted, and was probably never read, or even seen, by the 
reviewer. He then quotes the opinion of Stewart himself, 
that the Stoics carried their notions of the liberty of the will 
to an unphilosophical extreme.* Now, that the reviewer 
had never made any original investigation of this matter, but 
had merely, in his hasty search for something to use against 
me, relied on what came first to hand in Stewart, is plain 
from this, — that the more recent and accurate investigations of 
Bitter fully justify my assertions, and the common opinion 
as to the Fatalism of the Stoics, and show that the free will 
which they asserted was merely nominal. He proves, by 
clear authorities, that, according to them, matter was originally 
in God, as an essential part of him, and had laws of its nature 
above his will ; and that he developed the world out of himself, 
according to certain fixed laws of fate, and that by the same 
laws all will be again destroyed ; " for all is ordered by the 
laws of necessity, and has the life of a self-developing animal." 
Viewing God and the universe together, " the whole appeared 
to them merely as a material God, who, both in and out of 
himself, is subjected to the force of necessity." They did, 
indeed, he allows, try to escape such a result by a verbal 
denial of the subjection of God to necessity ; but he clearly 
proves that the very ground-principles of their system im- 
plied his subjection to real necessity, as originating not only 
from an eternal chain of causation, but also from the nature 
of the very essence or matter of God, in subordination to the 
necessary laws of which, all of his developments must proceed. 

* Still further to embarrass a thorough inquirer, the reference to 
Stewart's works is to the wrong page. He refers to vol. vi. p. 241. It 
should have been 471, or else vol. v. p. 594. 
VOL. III. 38* 



450 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



So also, though in words they extolled the freedom of the 
will of man. still they held that his nature and propensities 
were assigned to him by a fate above any power of his own, 
or of God, for even he cannot suspend or repeal the laws 
of matter: and, though they denied a necessary subjection of 
the will to the power of external objects, they none the less 
subjected it to an absolute internal necessity, created by the 
fated constitution and propensities of man. — See Bitter, 
translated by Morrison, vol. in. pp. 515, 518, 526, 532 — 
536, 554—556. 

Eelying still on the aid of Stewart, he proceeds to prove, 
from Lucretius, that the Epicureans held to a will set free 
from fate, and refers to Cicero as of the same opinion. If 
he had taken the pains to look thoroughly into the matter, 
and to read Cicero, to whom he refers, he would have found 
that the free will which the Epicureans professed in words 
Cicero regarded as merely a ridiculous pretence. They held 
that the soul, as well as all things else, was but a fortuitous 
concourse of atoms ; and that free will, so called, was but a 
fortuitous motion of these atoms, out of the perpendicular 
line, in which they naturally descend, — a motion totally 
without reason, and entirely uncertain in time or place. 
Cicero, moreover, not only adverts to this ridiculous theory 
of pretended free will, but also says concerning it, " No one 
seems to me more to establish, not only the doctrine of fate, 
but the necessity and compulsory power of all things, and to 
have destroyed all real voluntary agency, than he who con- 
fesses that he could in no other way refute the doctrine of 
fate than by resorting to these pretended irregular motions 
of atoms." — Cic. de Fato : 20, 48. 

On this point, also, Stewart, his one great oracle, says, 
" Lucretius, indeed, speaks of this liberty as an exception to 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 451 



universal Fatalism ; but he, nevertheless, considers it as a 
necessary effect of some cause, to which he gives the name 
of clinamen, so as to render man as completely a piece of 
passive mechanism as he was supposed to be by Collins and 
Hobbes."— Vol. v. p. 593. To this Stewart adds, " The 
reason which he gives for this is, that, if the case were 
otherwise, there 'would be an effect ivithout a cause" 

If the reviewer's practical theory is a good one, — that it 
is sufficient to destroy the influence of a man's reputation, 
and of his whole argument, to point out some incidental 
errors, — then, for augnt I see, he has, in the blundering 
criticism which I have exposed, thoroughly neutralized his 
own authority as a critic. It ought here, also, to be re- 
marked, that the opinion of Hitter concerning the Fatalism of 
the Stoics is by no means peculiar to him. Eschenberg, in 
his manual of classical literature, does not hesitate to say 
that a the doctrine of fate was one of their (the Stoics') grand 
peculiarities. They considered all things as controlled by an 
eternal necessity, to which even the Deity submitted ; and 
this was supposed to be the origin of evil." — Fish's 
Translation, p. 228. 

In the History of Philosophy adopted by the University 
of France, and translated by C. S. Henry, D.D., it is stated, 
as a principle of the Stoic philosophy, " that everything is 
subject to the laws of fate ; for God, or the primitive intel- 
ligent fluid, can act only according to his nature, and the 
nature of the passive principle which he ensouls ; and souls 
emanated from the universal soul are, for the same reason, 
subject to fatal laws in their sphere of action." — Vol. I. 
p. 164. The historian also admits that the system recog- 
nized ideas of justice and holiness, and also of duty and 
obligation; but regards these as merely a contradiction of 



452 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



the undeniable principles of the system. So general is this 
view, that Webster, also, in his quarto dictionary, presents 
it, and refers to Enfield as teaching that the Stoics held that 
all things are governed by an unavoidable necessity. Even, 
then, if I had erred in adopting as true an opinion so current, 
and nearly universal, it would have been no good ground for 
insult and reproach ; but, since I was correct, and my critic 
at fault, it is easy to see upon whom the reproach, if any is 
to be borne, ought to fall. I disapprove, however, of the 
whole style of criticism pursued by the reviewer, and have 
no disposition to imitate his evil example. 

As to Bolingbroke, whom I classed with the Fatalists, it is 
true that in some passages he clearly teaches free agency in 
form ; and yet he no less clearly teaches the materialism of 
the soul, which is the fundamental principle of material Fatal- 
ists, and denies a special providence, and individual retribu- 
tion, in this or the future state, if there is any, which he 
does not admit. Tholuck, in his " History of Theology in the 
Eighteenth Century," published in the Biblical Repertory, 
with approval, says of him, 11 He seems, on the whole, to 
have approached very near to materialistic atheism, deny- 
ing the moral attributes of God, and admitting only his 
wisdom and power." When, in connection with this, we 
consider his licentious life, and his notorious habit of pro- 
fessing, for effect, what he did not really believe, his asser- 
tions of free agency are no proof that in reality he held that 
doctrine, and did not hold to the legitimate results of his 
materialistic atheism. Did he not assert, in a great variety 
of forms, his belief of the divine origin and authority of 
Christianity, as set forth in the gospels ? And yet, is any 
one simple enough to believe that he was not an enemy and 



REMARKS OX THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 453 



a disbeliever of Christianity 7 Yet, on the whole, I have 
chosen to omit his name from my list of Fatalists. 

As to Descartes, it is true that he was no Fatalist ; it was 
an error to call him such. I did, in fact, by a slip of 
memory, confound him with his contemporary Gassendi, who. 
in fact, revived and defended the theory of atoms set forth 
by Epicurus, and based his natural philosophy upon it. Still, 
even Gassendi did not deny the existence and creative power 
of God ; but. atoms being created, he explained the universe 
by them. The reviewer next pretends not to know whether 
Spinoza was a Fatalist or not ! Probably he did not know 
whether he was a Pantheist or not : or, perhaps, he did not 
know whether Pantheism is, of necessity, a system of Fatal- 
ism. All this professed ignorance, so discreditable to him 
as a scholar, seems to be assumed, for the sake of avoiding, 
as far as possible, any acknowledgment of the accuracy of 
any of my statements. For the same reason, he undertakes 
at great length, but fruitlessly, to vindicate the materialist 
Hobbes from the charge of Fatalism. 

And yet it is worthy of notice, that in the very collection 
of Princeton essays which contains this vindication of Hobbes 
there is an article by Neander, already referred to, in which 
the same charge of Fatalism for which I am arraigned is 
made against him, with the implied approval of the editors. 
Flis words are, "He maintained that God and the angels 
were not spirits, and denied the liberty of manP Again, 
he says, " His materialism produced, for a time, considerable 
effect : the doctrine of human liberty \ and the existence of 
spirits, were rendered doubtful in the minds of many, and 
even a species of atheism became, to a certain extent, prev- 
alent.'"'" — Vol. i. p. 566, 567. 

If all this, as said by Xeander, is so true and important 



454 



VIEWS OF THEOLOGY. 



as to be published, "without criticism or censure, in the 
Biblical Repertory, and is meritorious enough to be repub- 
lished in one of their permanent volumes, then how happens 
it that, when I say the same things, they are at length dis- 
covered to be false and censurable, and are published as such 
in the same collection ? Does it not look as if the great 
point to be carried by the Princeton divines was to accumu- 
late errors on me at all hazards, even if, in so doing, they 
introduced inconsistencies and contradictions into their own 
select works ? 

I pay so much attention to these historical statements 
merely because the reviewer seems to rely on them so 
greatly for effect. And yet, as affecting the logical force of 
my argument, they are of no weight whatever. What if I 
do happen, occasionally, to err in making out a list of Fatal- 
ists 1 Does it therefore follow that there are no Fatalists, 
and that there is no such thing as Fatalism, and that the 
elements of Fatalism have not been, in all ages, such as I 
have represented ? It would have been more to the purpose, 
if the reviewer, after wasting so much time on such alleged 
errors as even if correctly alleged were merely incidental, 
had at length met me with sound arguments on the main 
question ; but this is precisely what he failed to do. 

Besides these modes of attack on me, the reviewer tries, 
here and there, to prove incidental inconsistencies and con- 
tradictions. For example, I assert, in my argument, that in 
the sense assumed by Fatalists motives are not causes of 
volition ; that is, strictly and properly, necessitating causes. 
In another place, however, I teach that the truth is instru- 
mental as a moral cause, when used by God in regenerating 
the soul. Here, he exclaims, is a palpable inconsistency ; — 
just as if I did not plainly use the word cause in two senses 



REMARKS 02s THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 



455 



in these two cases — one in a material, the other in a moral 
sense ! — See p. 170. 

Again. I affirm that the simple ability of choosing wrong 
is nothing as an explanation of the fact of uniform and un- 
reasonable wrong choice. How. then, asks the reviewer, can 
the ability to choose right be everything, as I elsewhere 
teach? Here, he exclaims, is another inconsistency. Just 
as if what I said in the second case were not this : that 
ability to choose right is of supreme importance as a basis 
of responsibility for right or wrong choice, and not as an 
explanation of the reason why men choose either right or 
wrong ! — pp. 176. 177. 

Such are the flimsy proofs in view of which he goes on to 
allege that, though I may be a good orator and rhetorician, 
I am worthy of no confidence as a logician or a meta- 
physician. — p. 177. All that I can say. in reply to such 
criticism, is, that it is sufficient for me to provide clear ideas 
and sound arguments ; I am under no obligation to provide for 
the reviewer the capacity or the candor needed to understand 
them. The same remarks may be made with reference to 
his opening harangue, at the beginning of the second part 
of his review. It is a mere piece of objurgatory rhetoric, 
designed for effect, and has no basis whatever in a candid 
and intelligent interpretation of my language and argument, 
taken as a whole. 

"What, now, can be the real reason of such a course 
towards me ? To my mind it is clear that, had I been 
willing to coincide with certain men, of a certain party, 
in certain practical measures, I should have been left 
undisturbed in my theology, especially as every tribunal, 
from the Presbytery to the General Assembly, had sus- 
tained my orthodoxy and condemned my accuser, — and 



456 



VIEWS OE THEOLOGY. 



that with the concurrence of the Princeton gentlemen them- 
selves, in the General Assembly. But, after all, with refer- 
ence to certain favorite practical measures, I still proved 
refractory ; and then, however it may be accounted for, the 
review came, and it was such as I have shown. The re- 
viewer, I am aware, ridicules the idea of a purpose to write 
me down. I shall go into no controversy on that point. I 
have my own knowledge of facts and coincidences, and my 
own belief ; but, whatever may have been the origin of the 
review, it is enough for me to have shown what it is, and to 
have left on record, for all who love the truth, this vindica- 
tion of my character and my views. In conclusion, I com- 
mend my labors, on the important and fundamental doctrines 
discussed in this volume, to the candid consideration of my 
fellow-men, and to the care and vindication of my God. 



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